WORKING WITH DESTINY . The Practice of Karma Research RUDOLF STEINER LIBRARY

VYDZ014153

Working with Destiny

The Golden Blade 1997

Rudolf SteinerLibraiy 65 Fern Hill Road Ghent, NY 12075 (518)872-7690 [email protected] Working with Destiny

The practice of karma research

The Golden Blade No. 49

Edited by William Forward and Andrew Wolpert

Anthroposophy springs from the work and teaching of Rudolf Steiner. He describes it as a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.' The aim of this yearly joumal is to bring the outlook of anthroposophy to bear on questions and activities of evident relevance to the present, in a way which may have a lasting value. It was founded in 1949 by Charles Davy and Arnold Freeman, who were its first editors. The title derives from an old Persian legend, according to which King Jamshid received from his god, Ahura Mazda, a golden blade with which to fiilfil his mission on earth. It carried the heavenly forces of light into the darkness of earthly substance, thus allowing its transformation. The legend points to the possibility that humanity, through wise and compassion ate work with the earth, can one day regain on a new level what was lost when the Age of Gold was supplanted by those of Silver, Bronze and Iron. Technology could serve this aim; instead of endangering our planet's life, it could help to make Floris Books the earth a new sun. Contents

First published in 1996 by Floris Books. Editorial notes 7 © 1996 Floris Books, Edinburgh All rights reserved. No part of this publication may The karmic core of anthroposophy be reproduced without the prior permission of 13 Floris Books, 15 Harrison Gardens, Edinburgh. Virginia Sease

Karma research N i c k T h o m a s 32 Intimations in images Nothart M. Rohlfs 37

Trauma versus karma H a n s P e t e r v a n M a n e n 46

Angels amongst us Hartwig Schiller 57

Karma and the Internet Dorit Winter 77

Shakespeare and world destiny Richard Ramsbotham 102 Karma and the mystery dramas John Gee 121

Notes on the contributors 127 British Library CIP Data available

ISBN 0-86315-241-1 ISSN 0967-6708

Printed in Great Britain by Cromwell Press, Melksham, Wilts. Editorial notes

To represent the knowledge of reincarnation and karma for the twentieth century and into the future was the essence of Rudolf Steiner's task. Lecturing and writing not only for those who had already committed themselves to a path of inner develop ment, this Christian initiate also addressed the public on themes that had till then been the preserve of secret brotherhoods. He knew that the interest in esotericism and the growing capacity to be individually responsible in matters of occult science demanded that he speak about how the faculties of supersensible cognition could be attained, as well as about the results of his clairvoyant research. In books such as Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Occult Science as well as in lectures and numerous other publications, Rudolf Steiner describes very specific exercises to develop the powers of thinking and observation, to penetrate the soul forces with greater consciousness and to meditate with full presence of mind. It is characteristic of spiritual science, just as with natural science, that every stage of investigation is consciously observed and understood so that the processes, as well as the result, are known. This is what distinguishes spiritual science from mysticism and other excursions into the occult, in which only the destina tion is experienced and the journey is veiled. The salient charac teristic of all these exercises is that they are to be practised regularly and repeatedly, and that they do not produce instant clairvoyance. Even the very specific karmic exercises that Rudolf Steiner also gave will not lead to sudden revelations of previous 9 8 WORKING WITH DESTINY EDITORIAL NOTES

incarnations. It is much more the case that the consciously willed tion is self-evidently reliable, axiomatic. The analogy with natural faithfulness to such freely undertaken inner discipline may lead to science is pertinent and exact: if the process of observation is not a certain soul sensitivity and spirit receptivity that help to make axiomatically valid there can be no scientific process or hj^jothesis sense, to discern meaning and be awake to intimations of the to be proved or refuted. It is an uncomfortable but unavoidable fact that, in this area workings of destiny. This issue of The Golden Blade is dedicated to the exploration of growing public awareness, intense interest and specula of destiny and karma manifestations that have revealed themselves tion, there are unhealthy spiritual forces in the wings, ready to to the practice of such spiritual-scientific research methods. We take advantage of ingenuous and untrained prospectors. Their offer no sensational secrets about past lives, firstly, because mere credulity, although well intended, becomes fertile ground for the counter-evolutionary forces to plant partially true stories. curiosity without responsibility is inimical to the faculties of The apparently most compelling external circumstantial evi clairvoyance and, secondly, because, when such knowledge has been won, it is treated with the discretion that protects it from dence that corroborates the revelation of a previous earth life scandal-mongering. One is even tempted to say that sensational (there tumed out really to be a secret passage under the cellar!) revelations are prima facie suspect because the capacity to win only proves that the story corresponds to certain facts. It does karmic insight is inseparably linked with the knowledge of how to not prove that the individual to whom it is revealed had the handle such information appropriately. The reassuring aspect of supposed karmic connection with it. To be blunt: one can be this is that any occultist who invites and expects attention on the unwittingly possessed. In this way the timely knowledge of basis of claiming who he was in a previous life is certainly a reincarnation is undermined and wrecked by pseudo-experiences. The strategy is that when these spurious revelations are eventu charlatan, either lying or misusing the truth. No initiate who serves human evolution will allow the glory of a past incarnation ally exposed, they will, in the process, discredit the whole notion of repeated earth lives. It serves no good purpose to play down to lend credibility to his present endeavours. While the achieve these attempts to cut us off from our true spiritual heritage: ments of previous lives form the possibilities and tasks for suc ceeding incarnations, the accomplishments of each life must speak knowledge of reincarnation and karma is the foundation of our future culture. f o r t h e m s e l v e s . It is the epistemology of letting the matter speak for itself that Hans Peter van Manen, whose article on regression therapy explores this theme, is well knovm for his own investigations of eschews a guru whose superior consciousness displaces mine; that the workings of destiny. In addition to his much acclaimed book disdains the ouija board which purports to tell me 'who' and Twin Roads to the Millennium (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988) he has 'what' but not 'how'; and that mistrusts the claims of spontaneous also published a lecture given in 1991 under the title Marie or hypnotically induced revelations of previous lives, precisely Steiner: Her Place in World Karma (Temple Lodge Press, 1995). because in all these the process of arriving at the information is This is an exemplary piece of karma research, in which he de not part of what is seen. If the karmic intimation does not validate scribes the careful processes of observation and modestly but itself, then there is a dependence on an unknown intermediary. clearly expressed hypothesis in such a way that the journey and That is not science: the matter does not speak for itself. It is a the destination are experienced as integral. The content of that characteristic of karmic research that the organs of spiritual lecture provides the complementary historical perspective on the perception have reached a degree of sensitivity that the observa

/ 10 WORKING WITH DESTINY E D I T O R I A L N O T E S H article by Virginia Sease, which illustrates most illuminatingly quences to the quality and potential of our meetings might be if how the laws of karma, in a particular situation, can be seen to they are substituted by virtually real intercourse on the Internet. run their course through lives of individuals, facilitating their Her clear and dispassionate analysis of the threat to the sanctity destinies. The theme of principles at work in karma is taken up by of the human encounter is imbued with love for the truth that Nick Thomas, who explores the individual manifestations of such will not shirk the challenge to engage with the opposition. Just forces which are non-mechanical, non-deterministic, unpredictable, what is at stake is the theme of Nothart Rohlfs' article, in which and yet disclose their lawfulness. he describes the images and impressions that disclose them The paradox of inevitability and unpredictability is one of the selves if we work consciously with the potential in our meetings features of karma that Hartwig Schiller identifies in his con with others. Awakening to the reality of another person through tribution based on his experience as a teacher. The keenly ob the schooled sensitivity Rohlfs has practised is something of an served aspects of collegial life at the level of individuals, place antidote to the dangers of the virtual interactions that Winter and time hold good at a more general level for any group of exposes. It is a Michaelic deed to undertake that schooling of sen individuals who assemble to work together. However, a College of sitivity not instead of but alongside the unavoidable electronic Teachers in a Waldorf school is one of those few collegial com encounters. munities where the ideas of reincarnation and karma can be taken If the world is a stage for the drama of our destiny, then a play for granted and are actively worked with socially and pedagogi- inspired by karmic themes makes the theatre a highly potentized cally. A certain constellation of colleagues in a particular school at microcosm. To compare and contrast the plays of Shakespeare and a specific time is a manifestation of karmic forces from the past, Rudolf Steiner's mystery dramas would surely be a rewarding ready at every moment to serve the future destinies of the institu enterprise. In the articles by John Gee and Richard Ramsbotham tion, the teachers and the pupils. two veiy different approaches to destiny are explored through At any moment one can have an intuitive grasp of one's free drama. In the one an actor describes the experiences of represent dom to accept, unite oneself with, and serve one's destiny. The ing the destiny events of reincarnating individuals. In the other a idea that we took certain resolves before coming to earth, that we scholar discerns the manifestations of macrocosmic events through have prebirth intentions which we do not immediately remember, the characters in some of the plays. is the secret that solves the paradox of freedom and destiny. The timeliness of our theme for this issue was home out by the Freedom at this level means to be unimpeded and awake to recog encouragement we received from our speaking paitners and by the nize the direction we have chosen. Accepting the idea that we enthusiasm of our contributors. The momentum is not exhausted have participated in the shaping of our lives is already a first stir by this issue. We have decided to devote next year's Golden ring into that wakefulness. The very notion that there may be a Blade, the fiftieth edition, to a continuation of the theme, with purpose to the hard knocks of life and that we, ourselves, may fiirther contributions arising out of practical karma research, and have purposed them is part of the freedom that is compatible with hope to include, among others, articles by doctors, therapists and destiny. priests, whose work is based on the active consideration of karmic Not of least significance in our self-directed role are the en influences. counters we have with other individuals. Also within the wider This is the last issue to be published with our colleagues at pedagogical context, Dorit Winter explores what the conse- Floris. We wish to thank them most warmly for their support and 12 WORKING WITH DESTINY 13 unstinting editorial advice and assistance. The new publishing arrangements have not been finalized at the time of going to press but we expect the 1998 issue to be available through the usual channels towards the end of 1997. The karmic core of

W.F., A.W. anthroposophy

Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner 1900-1907

Virginia Sease

Especially in the last decade there has been a growing awareness that Rudolf Steiner's task required the accompanying strength of Marie von Sivers-Steiner's contribution in order to sink roots into the spiritual-cultural soil of the twentieth century. In regarding certain central aspects of this mutual work we can perceive how basic laws of karma are in action. Part of the following consider ations were included in lectures given for the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland and for the Section for the Arts of Euryth- my, Speech and Music in winter and spring 1996 at the Goethe- anum. They assume that the reader is aware of Marie von Sivers' (as of 1914 Marie Steiner) speech and drama studies and work in Paris.'

A destiny encounter for Marie von Sivers

An early characteristic of Marie von Sivers in her own words was: Before I left Petersburg I tore up my diary from that time which contained questions about the meaning of life and 15 14 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY

kept only the last page, on which was written: Ou trouver than a translator, he becomes an interpreter and co-worker la verite? [Where to find the truth?]^ of the author.^

Her search led her in the late 1890s to discover The Great Initiates by the French writer and mystic, Edouard Schure (1841- The path to Rudolf Steiner 1929), which he published in 1889. Even now, a century later, this magnificent work continues to form a bridge for many seekers of Soon thereafter Marie von Sivers asked Edouard Schure for his spiritual truth. Here a literary link is made to the ancient mystery opinion concerning contemporary spiritual societies and if one places whose teachers acted as guides for humanity. Marie von could profit from membership in any one of them. The response Sivers, whose linguistic prowess encompassed verbal and written was that he himself belonged to the Theosophical Society. There excellence in Russian, French, German, English and Italian, found fore, in the late autumn of 1900, when Marie von Sivers was in not only the content of Schure's work deeply inspiring but also Berlin and found an announcement in a newspaper concerning the his poetic language.^ This impression was enhanced when, while Theosophical Society, she contacted the leaders of the Berlin vacationing in the summer of 1900 on the Latvian coast of the Branch, Count and Countess Brockdorff, and discovered that Baltic Sea, she read Schure's most recent work. Theatre de fame, Rudolf Steiner, then 39 years old, would be holding lectures. It is which contained two dramas, 'Les enfants de Luzifer' (The Chil interesting to picture this gracious, attractive, highly gifted young dren of Lucifer) and 'La soeur gardienne' (The Guardian of the lady from the upper circles of society joining the small group of Threshold). She was so moved by 'Les enfants de Luzifer' that she dedicated Theosophists in the Brockdorff s large Berlin apartment. wrote to Schure to ask for permission to translate it into German. It was probably somewhat sensational! Her recognition of Rudolf Thus ensued a correspondence between Edouard Schure, at that Steiner's spiritual stature was instantaneous. time fifty-nine years old and very well known, and the unknown Even as Marie von Sivers' translations into German of Edouard Marie von Sivers, exactly thirty-three years old. Schure's dramas meant a turning point for his international recog In an early letter from mid-October 1900, Edouard Schure nition, so too for Rudolf Steiner did she bring about the next and writes in response to a letter from Marie von Sivers: most vital step into the future. He speaks about this moment years later in a lecture (11 October 1915)® when he alludes to a conver The impetus of your thoughts and the finesse of your sation with Marie von Sivers in the autumn of 1901 at the home feeling indicate that you belong to those special souls, who of a theosophist. Marie von Sivers always spoke of this destiny seek the meaning of life beyond banality and those regions conversation as the 'Chrysanthemum Tea' conversation, as so which are forced upon us by the necessity of fate, in order to rise up to an ideal which you have freely chosen and many chiysanthemums decorated the room! The tea itself was to commemorate the founding of the Theosophical Society on 17 which you try with determination to realize.'* November 1875. Marie von Sivers asked if it were not necessary Then some weeks later in November 1900: to call into life a spiritual movement expressly for Europe, as Theosophy was so connected with eastern spirituality. Rudolf When a translator is filled with such noble enthusiasm for Steiner responded that he could only be for such a movement that the ideas of a text which he is translating, then he is more would connect decidedly with western Christian occultism and

/ 16 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY 17 which he would develop further. Through this question Rudolf Is history relevant for seekers of the spirit today? Steiner knew that the person had appeared who could carry his own spiritual task with him. This was in a sense a prerequisite for For decades in the westem world we have been living in an the task itself. He referred to Marie von Sivers from the beginning 'instant mode of civilization.' A sense for historical perspectives as co-founder in the work. Johanna Miicke, a trusted co-worker has diminished significantly, if not even in many instances totally from the early days in Berlin, recalled a statement by Rudolf disappeared. The reasons are legion and need not be enumerated. Steiner: Perhaps we may notice today — after a century devoted to innu merable wars — a question dawning in various quarters: is human Therewith [that is, Marie von Sivers' question] I received the possibility to work in the way which I imagined. The ity capable of leaming anything from its experiences that can then become strong enough to avert similar disasters in the future? It question was presented to me and I could, true to spiritual will fall to the twenty-first century to wrestle with this question, laws, begin to give the answer to such a question.' or ultimately to self-destruct. The journey from this moment on, beginning with the request For the spiritual seeker there are certain laws that exert as in 1902 at the Theosophical Congress in London that Rudolf significant an influence as do the laws of nature. One of these Steiner assume the office of General Secretary of the Theosophical laws of the spirit we have already observed though Marie von Society in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, is well documented Sivers' question to Rudolf Steiner at the Chrysanthemum Tea: to in The Story of my Life and in Guenther Wachsmuth's biography begin activity the initiate must wait until the appropriate question of Rudolf Steiner. is placed. Marie von Sivers asked the initial question. Many such The correspondence fnendship continued to flourish between questions followed throughout the following years from other Marie von Sivers and Edouard Schure. It is a special example of individuals that resulted in the development of euiythmy, of Wal artistic exchange — music, literature, theatre — enlivened by deep dorf School education, of anthroposophical medicine, of a Move est esoteric searching at the dawn of the Light Age. Soon Edouard ment for Religious Renewal (The Christian Community) and of Schure, an avid reader, realized the spiritual significance of Rudolf biodynamic agriculture, to cite but a few of the more visible Steiner. Also, he was one of the first to recognize the fact that examples. In retrospect one senses the greatness of the individual Marie von Sivers' total support in everyday matters such as ity who could place the initial karmic question to Rudolf Steiner arranging trips and lectures, in artistic work as a great speech that then unlocked the door to the twentieth century and allowed artist and as a serious and devoted esoteric pupil herself made westem Christian esotericism to enter in. Rudolf Steiner's blossoming mission feasible. When the official Another important spiritual law concerns the principle of inauguration of the German Section of the Theosophical Society continuity. Rudolf Steiner describes in his autobiography that occurred, 18-21 October 1902, Rudolf Steiner mentioned in his whenever possible this principle must be observed. For this opening address that Marie von Sivers would be his co-worker in reason he linked onto the Theosophical Society while still main the leadership of the Society, and, ftirthermore, through her taining his own spiritual independence until it became necessary recitations the artistic element would be represented®. Thus we to separate the work of his Esoteric School from the Esoteric experience from the beginning of Rudolf Steiner's work for, a School of Annie Besant in 1907 and then to form the Anthropo Society his intention to include artistic impulses. sophical Society at Christmas 1912. This step resulted in a 18 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY 19

complete severing from the Theosophical Society with its Head Transition from the older mysteries to the new mysteries quarters in Adyar. The law of spiritual continuity finds its basis through a process Marie Steiner writes in an introduction to a 1939 edition of of recognition. The degree of recognition will vary according to Edouard Schure's The Sacred Drama of Eleusis, which she had the evaluation of the spiritual legitimacy in each case. We find, translated into German in 1906 and Rudolf Steiner then trans for example, that, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang von formed into a free rhythmic form: Goethe, Rudolf Steiner probably mentions Helena Petrowna In May 1906 the first meeting between Edouard Schure Blavatsky more than any other person. Indeed her greatness is and Rudolf Steiner occurred. He characterized it as a high perhaps seen more clearly through the eyes of Rudolf Steiner than in any other way and yet her limitations, in part resulting from the point of his life. And whoever is surprised by this ... [whoever] saw in his eyes how he recognized him again, age in which she lived, also come into profile though his careful this lighting up as if from deep shafts of memory and this descriptions. Yet it was through her Theosophical Society that Rudolf Steiner found his first platform for esoteric lectures. For joyful comprehension of words which were inhaled by him as something which was yearned for, anticipated, and exoteric scientific and cultural lectures he had various prominent desired, he could experience, that a destiny-meeting had platforms, for example in Weimar and in Berlin. occurred ... Prior to this meeting there had been a For spiritual development today in the Light Age not only is it correspondence already for seven years between me [Marie necessary to recognize the stream of continuity in which one must find one's spiritual bearings, but also the future, which radiates Steiner] which had brought Schure's being - humanly into the present, must be sensed. This is the great secret of the speaking - closer to us. I experienced him [Schure] for the first time in the flesh and knew that here a pupil had Akasha that Rudolf Steiner was able to reveal. For Edouard Schure in September 1907 Rudolf Steiner formulated this law: recognized his teacher." From this description by Marie Steiner we fathom how this At that time (1881) - and this already belongs to the meeting reflects a karmic friendship between these three individu external occult influences - I arrived at full clarity alities stemming from older Mystery School times. Surely this regarding the idea of time. This realization had no connection with my studies and it arose totally out of my constellation occurring at the beginning of the New Age must stand in a prominent light in the Akasha Chronicle. Immediately occult life. It was the realization that there is a backwards- a co-operative artistic-esoteric work started between the three that running evolution which interferes with the progressing one - the occult-astral knowledge of this is a requirement of led to the performance of Edouard Schure's Sacred Drama of Eleusis at the Congress of the Theosophical Society in Munich at supersensible vision.' Whitsuntide 1907. Marie von Sivers played the main role as In summary we may conclude that particularly the esoteric Demeter and Rudolf Steiner directed the entire artistic form of the seeker needs to develop an acute sense for the spiritual historical Congress. process. All karmic research demands this basic prerequisite. Between the destiny meeting in May 1906 and the Munich Congress in May 1907, which was the decisive turning point esoterically and artistically for Rudolf Steiner's task that from then 20 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY 21

on bore an esoteric Christian signature connected with the individ In matter weave - uality of Christian Rosenkreutz, a singular event occurred on 17 Know Spirit-bliss begun! December 1906. From the vantage point of a ninety-year retro This verse is the first verse composed in rhymed form by Rudolf spect one may interpret the meeting and collaboration of the three at that particular moment as a spiritual prerequisite necessary for Steiner. He describes further then in the lecture how the initiates a new step. The impress of this step appears in a lecture at Christ from all Mystery Schools - the Egyptian, the Eleusinian, the mas in Berlin known in English as Signs and Symbols of the Babylonian-Chaldaean, the Indian Brahman and so on - led their Christmas Festival, in which Rudolf Steiner describes at the outset pupils to an experience of the sun at the midnight hour. his intention to bring his listeners to a deeper understanding of the The event of 17 December 1906 represents a transition moment from the older Mysteries into the new Mysteries. These mantric being of the sun. Then follows: words brought into modem human language by Rudolf Steiner We will now hear those words, which reflect the deepest resounded before human beings openly through the voice of Marie meaning of the Christmas Mysteiy. The words resounded von Sivers, through her recitation. Thus the art of formed speech for the devoutly listening pupils of the Mysteries though all builds a bridge to the new Mysteries. It is a mystery itself how the times, before they themselves were allowed to enter into larynx of this special individuality could bring to manifestation the Mysteries." words from the ancient mysteries so that they could receive an One would imagine after the earnestness of this orientation that incamation possibility. Rudolf Steiner brings them out of the Rudolf Steiner would then speak the words himself. Not so, Akasha, forms them anew and guides them to the threshold of our however; Marie von Sivers in her uniquely artistically formed time, but then he lets them enter into the stream of time through speech then recited: artistic recitation. This event marks the beginning of a unique union of esotericism and art through the collaboration of Rudolf Behold the Sun Steiner and Marie von Sivers. This union remains a characteristic At the midnight hour! comerstone for the work of anthroposophy right into the present In the lifeless ground time. In rapid succession from that December 1906 event onwards Build your rocky bower! a new life for art inspired by Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science So, when in depths you mourn, unfolded. In Chapter 34 of The Story of My Life we read: Find you in Death's dark night Creation's pulse new-bom In the Theosophical Society artistic interests were scarcely With living Moming Light. fostered at all. From a certain point of view this situation The Powers on high make known was at that time quite intelligible ... The members of such a The etemal Word Divine; society centre all their interests at first upon the reality of The Deeps must guard their own - the spiritual life. In the sense-world man appears to them Peace, in their sacred shrine. only in his transitory existence severed from the spiritual. In gloom you live - Art seems to them to have its activity within this severed Create anew a Sun! existence ... [and] to be apart from the spiritual reality for which they seek. Because this was so in the Theosophical 23 22 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY

Society, artists did not feel at home there. To Marie von not yet easily accessible in English we will take note of various Sivers and to me it was important to also enliven the basic — however by no means comprehensive — aspects. artistic within the Society. Spiritual knowledge as an Several months before the Congress the programme, which was experience takes hold of the whole human existence. All printed in English and German, was sent to the members. Basic the forces of the soul are stimulated. Into formative fantasy points could be mentioned ahead of time as orientation, such as: the light of spirit experience shines when this experience is The content of the presentations will arise from lectures present... Marie von Sivers had her place in the art of springing from the theosophical world-view, artistic word-formation; she had a most beautiful relationship to presentations and purely social gatherings ... The artistic dramatic presentation. Thus for anthroposophy a field of art presentations will be chosen so that in the area of was there in which the fhiitfulness of spiritual perception sculptural as well as musical and poetic art, the specifics for art might be tested. will form a harmonious whole with the theosophical world- conception. Therefore in one of the events also the attempt will be made through drama to give a presentation of a New mysteries and new art impulses Mystery, [that is, Schure's Sacred Drama of Eleusis].^^ The end of Kali Yuga after 5000 years and the advent of the Rudolf Steiner's and Marie von Sivers' spiritual intention for this Light Age will perhaps be viewed from future perspectives as Congress sounds clearly here: manifesting most clearly and dramatically through art in the It would be very desirable, even if only in a modest fourteen years before the outbreak of World War 1. Not only great framework, if it could for once be demonstrated how the innovations such as in painting, music, sculpture, dance and theosophical world-conception is capable of enlivening the theatre announce the experience of crossing the threshold into artistic sphere ... so that Theosophy need not remain only a spirit realms, but also the destiny meetings that enhanced the new sum total of theoretical viewpoints, but rather can streams of creativity are of singular importance. Kandinsky and experience transformation into the sensory-visual and the Schoenberg may be mentioned as representatives for the many perceptible appropriate to the mood. In this way it deep and fateful fnendships in art that mark this period. They are [Theosophy] indeed can work fructifying upon the rest of a generation of spiritual seekers who incarnated with art as their culture.'^ gift of destiny and their means of expression. Directly in the middle of these fourteen years of relative inter And this indeed inspired many of the over 600 members present, national peace and spiritual-cultural receptivity, the Munich but it also was incomprehensible and even repulsive for others. Congress of the Theosophical Society took place. Rudolf Steiner, We may imagine their shock when they entered the conference Marie von Sivers and members in Munich planned and carried hall and saw that all of the walls were a brilliant red! To this this Congress, which introduced totally new elements into the life Rudolf Steiner wrote in his report for the journal Lucifer-Gnosis: of the Theosophical Society. It rapidly engendered, as Marie Esoteric knowledge says: 'If you wish to attune yourself in Steiner described it later, a 'separation of souls' (Seelen- your most inward nature, as the gods were attuned when entscheidung). As the documents pertaining to the Congress are 24 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY 25

they bestowed the green plant covering [on the earth], then Even through sparse descriptions we realize today that what learn to endure *red' in your surroundings as they [the took place during those few days comprises spiritual impulses out gods] also had to do ... the genuine esotericist when he of deepest Christian esotericism in its indivisible connection with represents the two opposite entities of the creative world art, which, as seed impulses, were then planted a few years later foundation in occult symbolism, interprets the green below into the form and colours of the First Goetheanum. The First as a characteristic sign of the earthly and the red above as Goetheanum should have at least spanned the twentieth century a sign of the heavenly (Elohim) creative forces."* but its task as far as physical accessibility is concerned was abruptly terminated by fire on 31 December 1922. In the Congress On the side walls and at the back there were the seven apocalyptic hall in Munich aspects of the Mysteries were placed before the seals designed by Rudolf Steiner and executed in colour by Clara participants right into the mysteries of the blood. In the front of Rettich. Rudolf Steiner took great pains to explain that they were the hall there were two columns, the one red, the other deep not merely symbolic in nature but much more, as they represent blue-red. They indicate the 'Mystery of Humanity's Development' certain objective experiences in the astral world: (Rudolf Steiner). One should experience the content of these seven pictures Occult science inscribes four deeply significant sayings with one's entire soul and undivided feeling [original Ger upon these two columns. When the human soul man, Gemut\ one should shape within oneself, in one's meditatively enters into these four sayings, then out of their soul, the content as it lives in form and colour, so that it depths comprehensive cosmic and human secrets well lives inwardly in one's Imagination.'^ forth.

In connection with these seals Rudolf Steiner now reveals that Jachin and Boaz what until 1907 had been strictly preserved by spiritual guardians J as absolutely secret now must be made accessible to the public. In pure Thinking you do find This is demanded for the further development of spiritual life in The Self that can hold itself. our time. And further: Transmute the Thought into Picture-life A column was placed each time between two seals. The And you will know creative Wisdom. seven columns could not be formed sculpturally, rather as a B substitute they had to be painted. However they are Condense your Feeling into Light: conceived as real architectural forms and correspond to the Formative powers are revealed through you. 'seven columns' of the 'true Rosicrucian temple' ... the Forge your Will into deeds of Being: capitals of these columins represent the planetary So shall you share in World-creation.'® development of our earth system ... in the forms of these A most important signature of this Congress stands in full revela capitals the inner life of each one of the development tion on the programme booklet itself. In the same report in stages comes to expression [that is, Saturn, Sun, Moon, Lucifer-Gnosis Rudolf Steiner offers an explanation that has far- Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan].'® reaching significance. Whereas these aspects were familiar to the 27 26 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY

more intimate esoteric students in the Esoteric School of the and his own Esoteric School, which he had led since 1904. Both Theosophical Society as of 1903, here they enter openly into the were within the framework of the Theosophical Society: cultural scene. The programme-was also red. On the outside leaf Until now both Schools were united in a large circle under in the upper left comer in a blue oval was a black cross entwined the common leadership of the Masters.'® Now, however, by red roses. Then to the right of the cross the letters: the Westem School has made itself independent and there E. D. N — I.C.M, - P.S.S.R. These are the ten beginning are now two Schools standing next to each other; the one alphabet letters of the words, through which through art in the East, the other in the West; two smaller circles tme Rosicmcianism is summarized in one objective: 'Ex instead of the one large [circle]. The Eastem School will be deo nascimur, in Christo morimur, per spiritum sanctum led by Mrs Annie Besant, and whoever in his heart feels reviviscimus.' [From God we are bom, in Christ we die, more drawn to her, he can no longer remain in our School. through the Holy Spirit we resurrect]. The cross symbol Each one should exactly examine which way the longing of entwined by roses expresses esoterically the meaning of his heart leads him. At the summit of our Westem School Rosicmcianism.'^ there are two Masters: Master Jesus and Master Christian Rosenkreutz. And on two paths they lead us, the Christian In the Congress hall rented for the meeting and transformed by the red walls, the apocalyptic seals, the seven painted columns path and the Christian-Rosicracian path ...^' with their capitals and the red column and the blue one, the words As we have seen the latter path is inseparably connected with of Schure's Sacred Eleusis drama sounded. The echoes of ancient art. In 1910 the first Mystery Drama was performed in Munich: Mystery wisdom translated and formed appropriately for early The Portal of Initiation, A Rosicrucian Mystery, followed each twentieth century consciousness by Marie von Sivers and Rudolf year by a subsequent drama — four in all — until the war broke Steiner streamed into a modem contemporary setting, which was out. Marie Steiner played the central role of Maria. As of 1912 in harmony with a Christian Rosenkreutz task for our time; eurythmy entered through special karmic circumstances into namely, the conscious union of a Christ-Michael-centred esoteri- anthroposophical life, and was developed mutually by Rudolf cism with expression in art, which evolves out of the trinitarian Steiner and Marie Steiner; the Goetheanum building, 'the House stream represented in the ten letters. of the Word' was artistically conceived and shaped and thus Marie Steiner's art of formed speech had a home at last. A rich artistic life could unfold because Rudolf Steiner himself was also an Glimpses of the script of destiny after the Munich Congress outstanding artist. This fact is often taken for granted; however, to gain an accurate appreciation and evaluation one may look at Marie Steiner described this time, as was mentioned before, as the other highly developed spiritual teachers from the point of view of separation of souls. This was indeed the case, for the spiritual creative artistic productivity. They do not keep pace with Rudolf consequences went far deeper than the Congress programme itself. Steiner. True to the Rosicrucian trinitarian impulse all branches of In an Esoteric Lesson for pupils of the Esoteric School immedi life touched by anthroposophy could become 'art,' thus the art of ately after the Munich Congress on 1 June 1907, Rudolf Steiner education, the art of healing, even the art of agriculture could refers to the Esoteric School under the guidance of Annie Besant develop. 28 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY 29

This transforming quality of Rosicrucian spiritual-scientific seen the unique correspondence-meeting between Marie von esotericism and art prepared the spiritual soul-soil of the human Sivers and Edouard Schure and its far-reaching consequences even beings whose destiny led them to Rudolf Steiner and Marie von today for us inasmuch as we have formed a connection with Sivers-Steiner so that when impulses from the supersensible anthroposophy. Michael School could be brought to manifestation on the earth A third consideration may not surface so easily for inspection through Rudolf Steiner in the Christmas Foundation Meeting of as in the case of Rudolf Steiner and Marie von Sivers-Steiner: the General Anthroposophical Society,'^ the hearts of those present who asks the decisive question that enables new spiritual and thus were well prepared to be receptive. Then with the development of also new social dimensions to enter the stage of contemporary the School of Spiritual Science in its esoteric work as well as in life? In a more modest way each seeker at some time has a the work of the various professional Sections the Rosicrucian 'Chrysanthemum Tea,' only he may let it slip by unnoticed. soul-culture could meet the Michaelic spirit-culture. This develop Then the moment arrives when the seeker becomes aware of ment continues into our time as a working manifestation of the the spiritual necessity of continuity. Today this takes on important New Mysteries. new dimensions due to the superabundance of occult groups. We do well to ask: what is the background, what is the stream, what is the 'spiritual pedigree* behind the guru or group? Consequences for the twenty-first century These questions lead to a fifth consideration that centres around In this brief consideration of the first seven-year period of Rudolf the evaluation of the historical moment in which one stands. What Steiner's and Marie von Sivers-Steiner's spiritual-urtistic collabo can one sense coming towards one from the future? Rudolf Stei ration certain aspects evidence not only a personal configuration ner's awareness of future spiritual necessities streamed into the but also an archetypal one. Their validity may serve as guidelines work for the Munich Congress, for example. The result was a new in a world that often demonstrates pervasive confusion in spiritual direction for western Christian spirituality and now this movement matters. A profiision of esoteric paths exists today, which verifies encompasses more people and activities than can be enumerated. that innumerable people are seeking spiritual orientation. Now a For our time and into the future a great question concerns the century into the Light Age this belongs to contemporary life and 'word' in the most extended sense. How does art speak today? is well beyond the initial thrusts across the threshold into the Does it emerge and receive its inspiration from a spirituality that supersensible world that we referred to with the artists in the early furthers the development of the human being or is it yet another years of the twentieth centuiy. What may serve as karmic indica fetter to the physical world because it lacks the forces of transfor tors today that a destiny configuration truly contains possibilities mation that lead to resurrection. Art springing from the impulses that surpass the purely personal level? At least seven aspects may of Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner lead the human being to be extrapolated from our considerations. Their sequence is of discover the latent art within his own nature. It is a task connected secondary importance, with the exception of the first aspect, which with the New Mysteries that each human being once again discov simply stated is: What is the nature of the initial quest? For Marie ers art as a bridge to the spirit, not in the mediumistic manner of von Sivers-Steiner it was: 'Ou trouver la verite?^^ Secondly, older times but through wide-awake consciousness. which human encounters during the quest provide bridges to other A seventh consideration is that of true spiritual, artistic and destiny meetings and to guidance in the quest itself? We have social collaboration. As humanity evolves further this aspect 30 WORKING WITH DESTINY THE KARMIC CORE OF ANTHROPOSOPHY 31

becomes increasingly essential. Even Rudolf Steiner in the great 5. Ibid. p.77. ness of his spiritual stature worked in our age in connection with 6. Steiner, Rudolf, lectui« on 11 October 1915 in The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century and Its Relation to Modem Culture. Rudolf Steiner other people. We have gained a glimpse into the most essential Press, London 1973. collaboration that continued also after Rudolf Steiner's death. For 7. Mflcke, Johanna, 'Aus der Geschichte des Philosophisch-Anthroposophischen the twenty-three years that were granted to Marie Steiner she Verlags' in the journal Die Menschenschule, March 1942, also in Marie tirelessly worked artistically for the further development of speech Steiner im Zeugnis von Tatjana Kisselejf. Johanna Mucke, Walter Abend- roth. Brnst von Schenk, Basle 1984. formation, of drama at the Second Goetheanum, of eurythmy and 8. See Scholl, Mathilde, Zum 20. Oktober 1902 und 1932 in 'Was in der for the editing and publishing of Rudolf Steiner's works. There Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht,' 1932, No. 43/44. were many other competent and faithful co-workers as well at the 9. Rudolf Steiner/Marie von Sivers, Correspondence and Documents 1901-1925. various stages of Rudolf Steiner's life work. They cannot be (GA 262) Tr. C. von Amim. Rudolf Steiner Press and Anthroposophie mentioned within the limits of this article, however for us the Press, London and New York 1988. (The Barr Document at the beginning of the book.) message is clear. The present time and the future raying into this 10. Steiner, Marie, Gesammelte Schriften II: Rudolf Steiner und die Redenden epoch demand that human beings work together irrespective of the Kunste, ed. Edwin FrobSse, Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Domach, degree of spiritual development they may represent. Rudolf Switzerland 1974, p.321. 11. Steiner, Rudolf, Lecture of 17 December 1906 in Signs and Symbols of the Steiner and Marie Steiner responded to this demand in an exem Christmas Festival, Anthroposophie Press, 1969. plary manner as their work unfolded first in theosophical circles 12. Steiner, Rudolf, Bilder okkulter Siegel und Sdulen. Der Munchner Kongress and then within the Anthroposophical Society. It demonstrates for Pfingsten 1907 und seine Auswirkungen. Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Domach, all who wish to plunge beneath the surface that the highest art, the Switzerland 1993, p.25. 13. Ibid. so-called royal art, will be the social art. 14. Steiner, Rudolf, 'Der theosophische Kongress von 1907' in Lucifer Gnosis, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Domach 1987, p.593. 15. Ibid, p.594. 16. Ibid, p.600. References 17. Ibid, p.602. ^ 18. Steiner, Rudolf, Verses and Meditations, Rudolf Sterner Press, Bristol 1993, 1. Extensive biographical research has been undertaken by Hella Wiesberger and with an introduction and notes by George Adams. See especially reference published by the Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1988, Domach: Marie Steiner-von 4, p.227 for further elucidation. Sivers. Bin Leben Jur die Anthroposophie. These studies as well as the 19. See reference 17. j Collected Writings of Marie Steiner (two volumes) are not yet available in 20. After 1914 Rudolf Steiner gradually dropped the designation Master and English translation. For biographical material refer to Savitch, Marie, Marie spoke of Leaders of humanity, or Teachers of humanity. Steiner-von Sivers. Fellow Worker with Rudolf Steiner, Rudolf Steiner Press, 21. Steiner Rudolf, Zur Geschichte und aus den Inhalten der ersten Abteilungder London 1967. Bsoterischen Schule I904-I9I4. Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Domach 1984, 2. From a letter of 23 August 1948 to Simone Coroze-Rihouet in Paris, in Wies berger, Hella, Marie Steiner-von Sivers. Bin Leben Jur die Anthroposophie. 22.Ste^nw^Rudolf, The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Bine biographische Dokumentation, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Domach 1988, Anthroposophical Society I923-I924, Anthroposophie Press, New York p.69. Translation into English, Virginia Sease with permission of Hella 1990. Wiesberger, Rudolf Steiner Verlag. 23. See reference 2. 3. Ibid. p.69. 4. Ibid. p.75. 32 KARMA RESEARCH 33

thinks not. Likewise, if we remove all the results of karma such as predisposition to illness, detailed physical characteristics, tempera ment, talents and capacities, the balance (or otherwise) of the soul Karma research forces, all that is of a generic quality, is anything left? If so, what? What is left is the core individual to whom all these things N i c k T h o m a s happen. If a fence near a golf course repeatedly gets struck by golf balls, it may become dented or partially broken, but it learns nothing. Externally inflicted changes do not create individuality, 'Other peoples' problems mostly seem so much easier to solve so a fence does not become in any meaningful way individual. than minel My problems do not seem sufficiently important to Such events only have significance if they happen to a core others individuality that learns and is inwardly changed by them. The In one way such a view seems trivial and absurd, yet for all generic laws within which an individual struggles and learns are that it reveals something interesting, for the law of my life is the woven around him. Clearly outer general laws such as gravity are law of my life, not yours. It is an individual law, unlike, say, the there for all alike but even then we find that different individuals law of gravity, which is general. We tend to think of general laws can have distinct relationships to those laws: some are irritated by somewhat spatially, applying to a complete domain at once, so them and seek to circumvent them, some love them, some find that all objects on earth experience gravity. We include time only them easy to master, others find them hard to accommodate. The in the sense that this is an enduring law, so gravity is supposed to generic laws of karma are much more closely bound to the indi have been as valid for Julius Caesar as it is for me, as it will be vidual, teaching special lessons which that individual needs. This for future generations. We do not normally think of a law that weaving is much more of an individual matter, for it only has operates actually in time itself, being valid for a sequence of meaning ybr an individual. The individual law is then that which events but not for other sequences running parallel in space. Yet weaves the generic and it is a law in the sense that it serves the my karma has this quality, for it is not your karma, and it operates developmental needs of the individual in an effective and wise through the sequence of my lives. manner, indeed in a loving manner. It is not, as even a superficial But surely Rudolf Steiner's research into karma revealed laws observation of life shows, sentimental. Love is not sentimentality applicable to all? If my thinking is weak in one life I will have a and seems to be most stem, yet is loving in that the experiences it weak will in the next, and vice versa. If I am male in one life I brings to an individual are those most needed in order to progress, am likely to be female in the next. If I am egotistic in one life I that is, are for the individual's greatest benefit. may suffer from malaria in the next. Many, many such laws and Research into karma thus involves two major levels, the discov examples were discovered by Steiner, with a general character. ery of the general laws at work and the much harder to find We encounter here the weaving between the generic and the karmic threads of destiny of individuals. Why should I or any individual. If we take the sum total of generic qualities of a other be permitted to look into the latter? The former do not carry person: height, build, national characteristics, sex and so on, is the same moral overtones and seem more suited to research. We anything left if they are all removed? Materialistic psychology need here to free the term 'research' from a one-sided idea that it 34 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA RESEARCH 35

only has to do with what is scientific. It will only be effective if reveal the workings of karma and provide a detailed description of conducted in a scientific manner but its subject need not be *the the spiritual research methods he used. In one case he had great stuff science' as it were. It must also involve art and the greatest difficulty in tracing the karma of an individual to previous lives, possible reverence. For the way the destiny of individuals is and in the end the way the man blew his nose provided the woven, sometimes grand, sometimes tragic, sometimes to bestow needed link! Here we see a striking example of just how individ blessing, is clearly a very exalted art. What an individual needs is ual these matters are, for at first such a thing might seem trivial. provided neither by recipe nor rote but is an individual creation in Yet so complete is the artistic weaving of the fabric of our lives each case, a mighty artistic 'solution,' even if involving general that the whole is expressed in every detail. Further, in each case ingredients. Consequently, no research method can hope to un the appropriate link must be found and, although general tech ravel such a creation that, itself, involves no art, for the perceived niques are developed, they really serve as a guide towards that and the perceiver must needs share some common ground. The observation in the individual case which is decisive. An example highest beings of the hierarchies exercise this art and themselves of a more general trend in evolution is the metamorphosis of the live through our lives in advance. Not to be shaken to the core of culture of the Arabic peoples a millennium ago into the style of one's being by such a fact is unthinkable. Life does not follow natural science today, Charles Darwin being an example of a karmic tramlines and we experience different possible ways to go, former military general in that culture who carried over into his with real decisions to be made, and we encounter a number of scientific work a metamorphosis of both his achievements and karmic communities to which we belong. We cannot pursue them failures at that time. Such broad trends give a general background all, yet all are real possibilities. So those beings must have lived within which related individual cases may more easily be traced. through them all, not just the actual course of life we eventually Conversely, it is clear that broad trends are also uncovered follow. through the workings of individual karma, which serve as point Spiritual research involves both perception and thinking, and it ers. Outstanding figures in history carry world karma as well as is distinguished from ordinary scientific research by the need to their own, and to that extent may more readily be traced. The undergo self-development to attain the possibility of having new relationship of Marx and Engels is instructive here, for the social percepts and being in a position to frame the quite new thoughts impulses they bore within them - no matter the way they were appropriate to them. In addition, a moral development is required taken up — were grounded in a social problem between the two of to provide the basis for a confidence in what is unveiled. What is them in a previous life, where the one ousted the other from his the good of new percepts if they are of uncertain merit? Mere property. bravado, such as is sometimes encountered among those who go A further remarkable fact was uncovered by Steiner, namely into these matters superficially, leads in the end only to confusion. that in some cases the Akashic record pertaining to particular Moral forces are laws of the spiritual world that give the same cases was apparently 'blank.' Further investigation revealed that sure ground to the researcher as do the laws of Nature in the sense they concerned incidents that had been forgiven by Christ and for world. Without them we literally 'fall to the ground' of the sense which the record had been 'erased.' In reality, such records are world (in the least unfortunate case). only available to Christian initiates, that is, to those who receive In the lectures Rudolf Steiner gave on Karmic Relationships in the new form of initiation instituted by Christ that supersedes the 1924 he carefully describes case studies he made, which both now decadent form of initiation of the old mysteries. This has 37 36 WORKING WITH DESTINY nothing to do with religion, being concerned with objective spiritual processes available in principle to all on the earth. It does indicate that research into karma will increasingly only be reliably founded on the basis of such processes, without which only Intimations in images dubious results are obtainable. This leads us back to the question as to why research into these deep and, indeed, holy matters should be possible at all. One Nothait M. Rohlfs reason is simply that it is needed now. For example, in the fields of medicine and education a genuine insight into the karma of a patient or a difficult child can be very beneficial in giving effec It is only the smallest part of what shapes the destiny of tive and appropriate help. Such insight is generally only granted to the human being that appears to the ordinary waking those who actually need it, that is, to the doctor or teacher who consciousness. The remainder generally operates in the has genuine responsibility for the case. The taking of responsibil unconscious. Yet it is precisely in revealing what belongs ity provides the 'guarantee' needed by the spiritual powers con to destiny that one can see how what is unconscious can be cerned, which is absent when we are merely curious. It is an brought into consciousness. Those who speak of what is at example of the fact that modem spiritual research is not a 'clois present unconscious as if it must remain absolutely in the ter' activity but rather is conducted in the real stream of life. The realm of the unknown, and as if it represented a kind of other aspect of the qualification needed for such research concerns boundary to human knowledge, are quite wrong. With the fact mentioned in the previous paragraph: that the motive for every aspect of his own destiny that reveals itself to the the work needs to be rooted in the Christian stream of initiation, human being, he is raising something previously even if the researcher is not an initiate as such. This will lend unconscious up into consciousness.' added reliability to what is uncovered. Finally, we must remark that merely general laws or 'mles' are also insufficient here and When the unconscious can thus become conscious, images there may be sound karmic reasons why a particular individual is are called forth in the soul that have the character of memories, able to conduct research into karma that may not be obvious to ^ut cannot be related to one's present biography. In these it others. seems also that destiny reveals itself from the depths of the uncon scious. In this article we shall attempt, on the basis of many conver sations and of my own experiences, briefly to determine the conditions under which such imaginative experiences occur. The phenomena we shall isolate to enable them to be recognized individually do not normally appear separately in the reality of Hfe, but are generally in combination with other elements. The. strongest feelings and impulses of will, such as love and hate, have their sources in the unconscious regions referred to 38 WORKING WITH DESTINY INTIMATIONS IN IMAGES 39 above. These sources themselves are human destiny, karma. Each of us becomes aware of them to begin with in our encounters with This need has simply been a very basic one since the other people. The impulses of will and the feelings that have their beginning of the twentieth century, and will become roots in destiny play into these encounters. stronger and stronger. This need will become apparent What takes place in the soul encounter of two lovers raises throughout the twentieth century despite its chaotic, tumultuous character which will affect the whole of them above the level of their everyday existence. The loved one can thus be experienced not merely as the result of past destiny civilisation: the need will be felt for human beings to achieve a higher degree of awakening in the encounter with but also in his orientation towards his own ideals for the future. each other than can be experienced merely in the encounter Something of his future being shines out as if what he wishes to with our natural surroundings. Dreamlife is awakened by become in the future were already fully present today. Our love for another human being thus allows us to see into the future, and natural surroundings to day waking consciousness. Day there to perceive what alone can make comprehensible the present time consciousness is awakened by other human beings, by condition of the human being, the nature and direction of his path their soul and spirit qualities to a higher consciousness. The human being must become more for the other than through life. The lover heightens and expands the receptivity of his soul, and the loved one becomes more beautiful, richer and heretofore. We must become awakening beings for each more perfect in the love that is brought towards him. His soul other. Human beings must get closer to one another than reveals itself in the depths of this love. ever before: everyone who encounters another must In 1923, Rudolf Steiner spoke of a process that seems surpris become an awakening being for him. The modem human ingly similar to what has been described. In connection with the being who has come into life at this time has stored up far central task of anthroposophy, a renewal of human community too much karma not to feel connected by his destiny with from out of the spirit, he speaks of an ^awakening of the human everyone whom he encounters in life. If one looks back to being in the spiritual and soul qualities of the other.' As far as the previous ages, when souls were younger, they had fewer soul and spiritual qualities that appear in this way are concerned, karmic connections. Now it is simply a matter of necessity this awakening, it seems to me, might be described very much in that we are not only awakened by nature but also by the the same words that were used above to indicate the transforma human beings with whom we are karmically connected, tion that the loved one experiences in the love that is brought and whom we seek out.- towards him or that the lover experiences in the capacity for love With regard to the necessary conditions for a true understanding that is developed within him. of anthroposophy, he says in another lecture: The central difference between the two may be that we are We only begin to develop an initial understanding of the graced with the love for each other by destiny, whereas the process of awakening in the encounter with each other has to be spiritual world when we awaken to the spirit and soul learned consciously, and on our own initiative. If we succeed in qualities of the other human being. Only then do we begin this, it can become a foundation of a new community life, the to have a real understanding of anthroposophy. Indeed, it foundation stone of an anthroposophy that has its roots in human behoves us to take this condition as a starting point for a communities. Steiner himself speaks of it in this way: tme understanding of anthroposophy, which one could call: 40 WORKING WITH DESTINY INTIMATIONS IN IMAGES 41

the awakening of the human being by the spirit and soul sions actually appear rather more in such a way that the under qualities of the other.^ lying condition of soul in which they make their appearance resembles that of concentrated reflection on something which is Rudolf Steiner makes a few opening remarks about the condi difficult to remember, and which is just occurring to one. One tions applying to such a higher awakening. Thus, for example, he makes a certain effort to bring the forgotten fact before one's speaks of a 'spiritual idealism' which would have to be 'planted' inner gaze. As we know, this does not mean that the sense world in human communities. But he says very little about the nature of disappears from one's consciousness but rather that it fades into the awakening itself. the background, like something of lesser importance that one takes In my experience, this awakening in the encounter with the for granted. other feels, to the one who awakes, like the unexpected sharing in If awakening in the encounter of the spirit and soul qualities a kind of blossoming of the other: as if one's own individuality of the other human being may be termed a kind of funda were more strongly present in the physical condition, thus giving mental precondition for imaginative karmic experience, then two it a kind of bloom. The person opposite even appears to the eyes further elements should be described which have the same of the beholder more physically beautiful, fresher, stronger and character. more individual (his features seem to become firmer, to take on Let me give an example of the second element. We all know clearer outlines, to become harmonious). He seems visibly 'to the situation where we are at a gathering or a conference where blossom.' One could also say, to penetrate his own physical form we are 'exposed' to a speaker whom we have already frequently more fully, to make use of its potential more comprehensively, met, and for whose utterances we are unable, even with the best more strongly and with more presence of mind. will in the world, to arouse in ourselves the slightest interest. It This 'blossoming' has its counterpart in the simultaneous may even go so far that we are seized by a strong and recurring heightening of the consciousness of the person concerned, who is antipathy as soon as the person concerned opens his mouth. One involved both in producing and perceiving it. day we may decide no longer to force ourselves, against all our In my experience, this awakening in the encounter with the inclinations, to listen to the man. We accept, as it were for the spiritual and soul qualities of the other human being represents a time being, our inability to take an interest in him, or his process that may precede the appearance of pictures in the soul thoughts, via the spoken word. Instead of this, on the other hand. that have the character of memory as described. We make a serious effort to find another way of approaching the As if they came out of this 'blossoming,' pictorial impressions person to gain access to him by a different route. may arise in the soul of the one who awakens, which appear like My own experience of such an occasion occurred during a delicate, imaginative shapes around the other human being. These iecture when I stopped trying to listen to the words being spoken. may take the form of human figures or faces, of simple or detailed My concern to meet the speaker somehow or other, despite my scenes that seem, nevertheless, not to relate to events belonging to antipathy, directed my attention to the movements of his arms and the present life. 'hen his hands. Eventually, I became absolutely riveted by the It may be that such 'scenes' occupy one's full attention, al 'Uovements of his fingers which had a fascinating effect on me. It though they do so without one's losing awareness of outer sense seemed as if what the person had to say always flowed into a kind impressions or ordinary, everyday consciousness. These impres of pointed, sabre-like, energetically executed, even flame-like 42 WORKING WITH DESTINY INTIMATIONS IN IMAGES 43

movement of his fingers, as if the concentrated essence of what he A third element should be mentioned here that seems also to be said flowed towards them, and from them on into the surround a prerequisite for the appearance of pictorial impressions con ings, working on into them. While I was engrossed in this process, nected with previous earthly lives. there appeared before the speaker the image of a person who had It is often experienced that images of this kind also appear in absolutely nothing in common with him, but which, nevertheless, connection with overcoming an inner resistance that has its roots had an almost shattering effect on me. The predominant impres in personal relationships. The following might occur, for example: sion was of a face which belonged to an historical figure of the during the course of ordinary working life, someone is asked to nineteenth century known to me from photographs. Immediately, take on a particular task that involves other colleagues. An inex the thought occurred to me: 'Should there be anything to this (in plicable aversion arises in him, growing stronger all the time, the form of a connection of some kind, or indeed, of the two which seems to have to do with the colleagues, although it does individualities being identical), then the step from the previous not seem to relate to any particular experiences he may have had incarnation to the present would be a truly astonishing and admi with them. Despite his massive reluctance to do so, the person rable one.' decides to take on the task in question. The determining factor is The feelings that followed on from this thought showed the a clear feeling that, despite all the obvious counter-arguments, this person concerned in a completely different light compared with is the right way forward. the way I had experienced him before. Carrying out the task turns out to be no easier than he feared. What is important here is only the phenomenon that occurred, The social interaction does not turn out to be easy. Neverthe and the 'response' of the soul. No claims will be made in respect less, the effort is made to bring what has been taken on to a of anything else. There is no question of asserting that this consti successful conclusion. Then it might happen that, in a specific tutes a case of reincarnation validated by spiritual science. The work situation, something comes before the soul quite un example is only intended to show that phenomena of this kind are expectedly in the form of memory pictures of events that seem to occurring more and more frequently today, and that the soul, relate to other circumstances and other times. At the same given that it is familiar with the appropriate concepts, may easily time, one can have the feeling that one 'knows' exactly who incline to interpret what it sees in connection with previous the people are today who appear in these recollections. Later incarnations, and that the phenomena seem to be the result of a on, one might have the surprising impression that one has re more than usually intense observation of the trivia and minor ceived something like an explanation for the inner reluctance one details of everyday life. has experienced by means of images apparently deriving from Rudolf Steiner says of such a heightened attentiveness towards previous incarnations. the otherwise unremarkable impressions of life, that it could lead Also in respect of this third element, Rudolf Steiner has made relatively quickly to the development of an apprehension of remarks that can shed an extraordinarily interesting light on the karmic connections. Could it be that a consciousness of everyday relationship between opposition one experiences in life, and the things, heightened by practice, could develop into the faculty of apprehension of a karmic background to them.'* directing one's attention accurately to what is significant, and that For reasons of brevity, no reference has yet been made to the such a condition of soul could be more receptive to karmic im possibilities and requirements of investigating and testing this kind pressions? of 'non'- sense impression referred to above. Naturally there is the 44 WORKING WITH DESTINY INTIMATIONS IN IMAGES 45

greatest need for meticulous, spiritual scientific investigation and References testing of such sou! phenomena in order to learn to gauge their reality and to avoid falling prey to error and illusion. 1. Steiner, Rudolf, Anihroposophical Leading Thoughts (GA 26), number 47. More and more frequently today, impressions appear before the Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1973. soul under circumstances such as those described, which seem to 2. Steiner, Rudolf, Awakening to Community (GA 257), Domach 3.3.23. Anthro- posophic Press 1974. be recollections of previous earth lives or of people who were 3. Ibid. Stuttgart 27.2.23. alive before. In my experience, the circumstances in which they 4. Steiner, Rudolf, Reincarnation and Karma (GA 135), particularly Berlin appear fall into broadly three categories: 30.1.12 and Stuttgart 20.2.12. Anthroposophic Press 1993. 1. an awakening in the encounter with the spirit and soul qualities of the other human being; 2. a heightened attentiveness to the minor details of life; 3. the overcoming of inner resistance which has its origins in personal relationships. These three elements which appear as it were in the ^biographical foreground' of such experiences, seem to have an inner connection with the threefold transformation and heightening of the will, the powers of cognition, and one's feeling power of soul: 3. a conscious taking hold of the will = overcoming resistance; 2. a conscious taking hold of one's powers of cognition = in creased attentiveness and heightened consciousness; 1. a conscious taking hold of the central powers of the human soul = awakening in the encounter with the other. The elements that Rudolf Steiner refers to frequently in connec tion with exercises of the soul seem to be appearing here in their first beginnings and in a metamorphosed way in biographical situations. Are we seeing here what were formerly the principles of initiation now appearing in nascent form as the principles of civilization? 46 T R A U M A V E R S U S K A R M A 47

way. Then the subject evokes his own experiences. But in most cases the psychotherapist or the leader of the session, sometimes with the assistance of others, guides the patient or the subject into Trauma versus karma the experience of a past life. Generally the subject is put in a lying position, often with eyes closed, like in a psychoanalytical session. Consciousness remains intact, although slightly dimmed. Modem reincarnation experience in the The session leader starts a dialogue with the subject and, without any haste, guides his attention to the past, youth, early childhood, light of anthroposophy infancy and then rather abruptly into spontaneous imaginations of what could be a former life. Then often the subject becomes Hans Peter van Manen active in describing vividly the situations of that life. Now and then the leader intervenes with a pointed question. The session can last an hour and a half, mostly not much more. The core of the A century ago reincarnation was more or less an apocryphal method is to find the moment of crisis that can be seen as the concept. In the margin of the intellectual elite it had raised some cause of a main problem in the present life of the subject. Often a interest even to the point of fascination. This interest was largely violent death or a violent shock of some kind appears as the due to the theosophical movement. Theosophy was still a new traumatic experience, which, in its after effects, lingers on in the phenomenon and had strong roots in the recent Hindu renaissance. present life. The renewed conscious confrontation with the shock From there concepts such as reincarnation and karma entered the ing experience brings relief to the patient and frees him from the European and American vocabulary. They had no place in the oppression, at least according to the claims of the regressionists. official culture, least of all in the new science of psychology. But So the Freudian concept of trauma is restored and widened into in the course of this century the situation has thoroughly changed. the field of previous incarnations. In large parts of the world, more specifically in western culture, A regressional session can be impressive. But immediately the reincarnation has become a much discussed and popular concept. question arises: how reliable are these experiences? Is there any Experiences of different source and kind have given rise to a guarantee that the imagined scenes are real reminiscences of a past literature of its own. Anthroposophy has certainly, to a substantial life? Mostly the regressionists choose a pragmatic point of view to degree, contributed to this growth of interest. In the last ten years counter this question, saying that the value of the method is not especially the interest has expanded rapidly, strongly pushed by a constituted by the historical reality of the experience but by its new method of investigation: regression. healing effect. This pragmatic attitude which one finds also with This method is often applied as a form of psychotherapy but it Raymond Moody (Life After Life, 1989), may be understandable can also be practised for its own sake. It has clear affiliations with but leaves the most important question unanswered. other psychotherapeutic methods that appeared earlier in the Connected with this question of the reliability is the problem of twentieth century, such as Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and esoteric hygiene. On the difficult path towards initiation one can, the less known method of the reve eveille, the evoked dream (or without danger, enter the spirit world only when one 'crosses the guided fantasy). Regression can be applied in a purely individual threshold' with full consciousness. In a regression session one 49 48 WORKING WITH DESTINY T R A U M A V E R S U S K A R M A

rather gets the impression that the subject, in a horizontal position, and channelling. In these sessions several supposed former lives of comfortably and unobviously passes under the threshold into - the patient come to the surface. Jussek's interest is focused on the yes, into which world? The spirit world? Or the soul world? Or is last two of these. The patient himself is serving as channel but, it a transitional realm between our physical world and the soul after the sessions, he has no recollection of what has been re world, a transitional sphere where reality and fantasy mix indis vealed through his own mouth. The last but one 'life' was in early criminately? eighteenth century Ireland, in which he is supposed to have been This uncertainty also remains in other kinds of current re an Irish rebel, persecuted, tortured and finally killed by the Eng incarnation experiences. About ten years ago the largely autobio lish oppressors. The second report speaks about an incarnation in graphical books of Shirley Maclaine gained enormous popularity. England in the nineteenth century in Northampton. There he tells One of the items she discussed and promoted in a New Age style about an existence as a son of a well-to-do family. He inherited a was the method of 'channelling.' One could call it a neo- leading position in a local bank, remained a bachelor, suffered mediumistic approach to the supersensible. The practitioners are frustrations, and had not made much of his life when he died at often compared with mediums, persons who with total exclusion advanced middle age in 1861. of their own consciousness were supposed to serve as mouthpiece Jussek decides to go overseas to investigate possible traces of for the souls of deceased human beings. This practice has above these human existences. In Ireland nothing can be found. The all been cultivated since the middle of last century in spiritualistic English had not kept registers of the rebels they liquidated. In circles. Now in the late twentieth century, the medium does not Northampton circumstances are different. Despite some difficul necessarily lose his complete consciousness but. Just as in ties, the church and the churchyard provide recognizable evidence. regression sessions, it is dimmed to a certain degree. He tries to Striking details confirm what the patient had revealed under serve as a channel for other beings. Sessions take place in the hypnosis. In 1861 a person with a similar name (John instead of form of simple dialogues. After the session the medium mostly James Stewart) had been buried in a churchyard that fitted the quickly forgets the details of the conversation. Sometimes in description. But strangely enough other crucial details do not fit these sessions former lives are questioned. The problem of their together at all. The person in question had been young when he possible reliability presents itself at least as strongly as with re died. His social status as an educated labourer had been very gression. tnodest and he had certainly not been rich at all. For Jussek the A revealing example of this questionable reliability is to be corresponding details are decisive. The differences are of little found in the partly autobiographical publication of Eugene Jussek consequence to him. Conversations with Yan Su Lu (German edition, 1986, preface by We relate this example because it is not very often that the E. Kubler Ross). Jussek is a German who studied medicine and reality of a reported life is investigated. One could at least ask psychiatry and emigrated to California where he developed an whether this mixture of truth and wishful fantasy is perhaps interest in unusual healing methods. He describes at some length present in many accounts of supposed former lives within or out a case that absorbed his attention for a long time. A good-natured side regression practices. patient of very modest social and intellectual status suffers, with Another much discussed field of recent experiences is the out obvious reason, from spontaneous fits of gloom and aggres growing number of young children's memories of possible sion. Jussek subjects him to a combination of hypnosis, regression former human lives (Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of 50 WORKING WITH DESTINY t r a u m a v e r s u s k a r m a 51

Reincarnation, Charlottesville, 1974). These experiences are quite and experienced as a 'spiritual law of nature' as a most refined common, above all in India. In such cases a child stubbornly appearance of the law of cause and effect. In this view, karma and claims to have another name and to be at home in a village, which its laws have a nearly all-embracing importance not only at a it can describe in detail, although it is beyond any doubt that the philosophical level — where it can be seen as the complement of child, in his present existence, has ever been there. A number of Steiner's 'philosophy of freedom' — but also at the practical levels these cases have been verified. Often it can be testified that the of medicine and education. Now the centre of discipline of Stei person with whom the child identifies itself had, indeed, lived and ner's anthroposophy is the esoteric inner schooling of the soul by died in the village, mostly not very long ago. Often it is a person which the soul refines itself gradually into an instrument of spiri of the same sex but not always. The religion can be very different. tual knowledge. The ability to tackle and recreate one's own Most of these accounts sprouted in the course of this century, but karma can be seen as the most essential element of this way of long before regression became fashionable. The same difficulty schooling. appeared here in this group of experiences. In one case a child There is a third main difference between the European approach caused surprise by the exactitude of its imagined observations but of anthroposophy and the Hinduistic-theosophical approach. Not the person it described had only died some time after the present only Hindu religion — and Buddhism — but also Hindu civilization child's date of birth. There is, of course, much more evidence of in all its aspects is based on and permeated by the concept of this kind that underlines that the reality and the accuracy of the karma. The framework is, curiously enough, strongly individualis experiences present unsolved problems. tic. The law of karma is a cosmic reality but it strictly applies to What light can anthroposophy shed on this field of experience? the conduct of the earthly human individual. Noble deeds and a Anthroposophy is not a religious teaching. It claims to be a pious attitude of life carry their fhiit in improved outward life method of spiritual investigation and was worked out as such by conditions in the next incarnation. Evil conduct is punished in the Rudolf Steiner. It is often seen as a modification of old Hindu next incarnation by a lowering of caste and other probations. The teachings in a theosophical framework. This is not the case. The prospect is serious but, to a certain extent, optimistic: in the end it first important aspect in which the anthroposophical version possible, in principle, to free the soul completely from all differs from other forms is that Steiner demonstrates how the karmic burdens. But the background is a thoroughly pessimistic concepts of reincarnation and karma constitute a logical con outlook on earthly life. Once free, the soul is discharged of the sequence of the methods and the results of European scientific obligation to dive again and again through incarnations into the thinking. That, in general, the scientific world has not (yet) hon earthly world, where all evolution is but an illusion. The European oured this claim does not counter the fact that Steiner and other concept, already present in the surprisingly original essay of G.E. anthroposophists feel challenged by science and try to bring the k-essing on The Education of the Human Genus and later worked two concepts into the orbit of human knowledge (Reinkarnation out by Steiner in a whole range of publications, widens the con und Karma vom Standpmkte der Naturwissenschaft notwendige cept. Menschheitskarma, the destiny of mankind; this wording Vorstellmgen; Theosophy, chapter 2). indicates that humanity, as such, is moving towards an aim in a The second main characteristic of Steiner's approach is that the distant future. The karma of the human individual is sublimated priority lies with the concept of karma. This word indeed has been those actions that contribute to the future of mankind and, taken from Hinduism but, in the last instance, it can be viewed accordingly, complicates itself by deviations from this course. In 53 52 WORKING WITH DESTINY TRAUMA VERSUS KARMA

this process Christ appears as the coordinator of cosmic justice, as interval. As a consequence of this, one can conclude that the Lord of karma. thorough change along the lines of metamorphosis manifests much A fourth characteristic must be mentioned: the law of metamor less strongly in a complementing incarnation soon after the last phosis, which intertwines with the law of karma. It implies differ intermpted one than usual, which means after a long interval ent aspects. For instance, the circumstances of one incarnation do between death and rebirth. Now, in most current accounts, the not purely repeat themselves in a next life. Indeed, in many novels time between the supposed incamations is short. This could, of that deal with reincarnation - such as the one-time popular novels course, mean that traumatic experiences have not yet been di by Joan Grant - the scenes and circumstances change only at the gested and transformed and, after the quick return, still show their surface; the relations, and often the emotions too, remain un after effects. changed. In the anthroposophical view the reality of karma is very Yet there is reason for serious doubt, whether these accounts in different. The new circumstances often show completely reversed general are genuine. Experiences of violence such as murder or roles, deep changes of character and mostly a shift of talents. The torture can indeed be so strong that after death they do not dis examples that Steiner gave in his famous karma lectures in 1924 solve lightly. This requires a short explanation. In the anthropo — one year before his death — are not meant in a dogmatic way sophical view man does not consist only of soul and body but a but just as examples to show, first, how vivid and deep such soul is enshrined in the three envelopes of physical, etheric and changes can be and, second, to demonstrate with how much astral body. The etheric outlives the physical body after death only consequence the development of the human individual rules over for a few days and dissolves then in the etheric cosmos. The astral these changes. body lingers on for quite a time. 'Astral body' means the complex Here lies one of the great points of difference between, on one unity of the emotions, inclinations, talents of an incarnated person. side, many modem accounts, especially but not only, collected It only gradually dissolves when, after the physical death, the soul through regression, and the anthroposophical view. To say it clear digests and objectivates the part-earthly life. This implies that ly: just as in the above-mentioned fiction, the element of meta certain very heavy emotional experiences linger on in the astral morphosis is absent in most of these cases. And in combination World as stubbornly insoluble ingredients. Such ingredients even with that another difference becomes manifest. According to tually can present themselves to other people, who longingly reach Steiner, time between two incamations encompasses as a mle back to their 'former life' and subsequently slip into these astral several centuries, whereas in regression and other contemporary vestments,' laid off by other souls. accounts generally the intervals are not longer than a few decades. When we try and make up the balance of our considerations so These indications confront us with a separate difficulty that can far, we may with caution conclude that a good deal of the modem be solved rather easily. Originally Steiner spoke about once in two accounts of previous incamations may be authentic, although they thousand years, but he meant once as a man and once as a do not constitute the mle, and that many may be illusory. This woman, so twice in total. On the other hand, one must take into cautious and inexact estimate still circumvents the most delicate account that there are many exceptions to this mle. When a child problem. That problem is the fact that this whole flood of experi dies it normally reincarnates very soon. Accordingly, people who ences, and especially the findings of regression, obscure the reality die at a young age return within decades. So the average interval of karma. To put it in a more pointed way: in regression the between two earthly existences is much less than the 'normal' concept of trauma is put in the place of karma. 55 54 WORKING WITH DESTINY t r a u m a v e r s u s k a r m a

So far we have treated revelations from regression sessions and other example is Barbro Karlen. She is a young woman in Sweden spontaneous reminiscences more or less as events of the same who became famous for two reasons. As a teenager she caused kind. This is not quite justified. For, in some cases, this spontane surprise by her literary talent. Her first volume of poetry became ous memory has a stronger claim to be taken seriously. We take a bestseller. The second reason was that she discovered in herself as a first example the case described in detail by Arthur Guirdham clear pictures with the quality of remembered scenes of the life of in The Cathars and Reincarnation (1970). It became known years Anne Frank. She did not try to convince public opinion but she before the wave of regression came up. The author, a physician, felt it as a certainty within herself, at first spoke freely about it had among his patients a woman who was haunted by impressions and soon became very cautious. After a time she avoided any from medieval southern France, in which she felt she had been further discussion. Again, the question presents itself: how can involved in the life-and-death struggle of the most powerful one ever be certain of the authenticity of such communications? heresy of Catharism. Her most urgent wish is to be freed from Scientific knowledge requires certainty and not probability. The these impressions. At first Guirdham concludes that basically she answer can be that here we have to do with probabilities that is a stable, healthy person. He then starts to investigate her claims sooner or later can develop into clear certainties. It can, for through study and travelling and finds historic details that never instance, happen through spontaneously converging experiences of could have been assembled by the patient herself. An extra reason different people. To give an example based on repeated experi for his interest is caused by the fact that his patient recognizes in ence, I have formed the impression that a living person whom I him the man whom she followed and loved in that time. The know could have been a certain well-known personality of the dramatic culmination of these memories is the death at the stake past. It is important that one is able to remain silent about it so of both of them (together with others). This experience is de that the impression can either wither or ripen. Withering means in scribed in so much detail that one indeed comes to the impression this case that the idea gradually fades away; ripening, the idea that here a trauma was engraved so deeply in the astral body that gains stability, which is not yet the same as certainty. Then karma it had to be lived through again in a new earthly existence to be can intervene in the following way. The person in question has got rid of and to be dissolved. Before having had any encounter died, one meets a friend who was at his death bed and who knew with regression methods, I had qualified the experience of Guird- nothing of my impression of the deceased person's previous life. ham's patient as a 'trauma' in the sense given above. To be quite Then all of a sudden, by a flash of inspiration, he arrives at the clear: here, as in many other cases, one is not in the realm of same impression: that the deceased person was identical with the certainty but still at a higher level than the level of mere possi historic individual I had in mind. Then one has moved into the bility. One moves along the path of probability. orbit of certainty. Whether one should speak or even write about The many cases of younger people living with the intuitive it is a completely different question. 'knowledge' that they lived and died young in World War II, From the side of regression practitioners, an often heard many of them in connection with the holocaust can be considered counter-criticism to objections like the ones made in this article is as a category of its own. Often these recollections are inarticulate, that anthroposophists dogmatically turn Steiner into an absolute just in the form of an inward certainty. Of particular interest are criterion. This may be so in some cases but, in its essence, this is two publications. One is the report of a Jewish rabbi on the a misunderstanding. Steiner showed different ways through which interviews he had with a number of these younger people. The the student himself can come to a knowing experience of remcar- 56 WORKING WITH DESTINY 57 nation. In the books mentioned from the beginning of the century he very clearly outlines how, by a consistent process of observa tion and thinking, one can arrive at a conclusion that karma is a reality. We will not elaborate on that. One must by one's own Angels amongst us study develop this experience. It is not an outwardly convincing proof based on scientific evidence. But people forget that the reality of an inward or outward fact can never be proved. Proof Hartwig Schiller always moves in the realm of hypothesis. The reality of a fact can only be experienced. Such an experience can only rest on an act of freedom. A cohesive range of thoughts such as Steiner's pre Let us look upon ourselves as human beings whom karma sentation of the concept of karma can evoke such an experience. has brought to this place where something is to happen It is characterized by a complete clarity, free from any mysticism. which shall surpass ordinary events — something which This logical approach is not theoretical at all but can make a may make all participants here feel that they have wit very theoretical impression. However, Steiner indicates another nessed a festive moment of world destiny.' veiy practical method of coming to grips with one's own karma. He gives a variety of different so-called karma exercises, most of These words were spoken by Rudolf Steiner on 21 August 1919 which all share the aim of trying to identify oneself with all the when he began the training of teachers during the founding of the adverse aspects that occur in one's path of life, for instance, first Waldorf School in Stuttgart. This affirmation of the signifi fhistrations in one's career or purely accidental injuries. In the cance of karma in the pedagogical impulse followed immediately year 1912 he suggested building up a picture of a person who em after the esoteric opening of the first lecUire in the cycle now bodies all the negative experiences with which one is confronted. known as The Study of Man. This opening was for many years This shadowy counter-personality soon loses its ghostlike quality; known only to a few, but is now published.^ it starts to become familiar. And, after a short while, one recog It is not only the moment he chose for these words that seems nizes it as one's own deeper self. This may not sound convincing remarkable, their content and formulation are also striking. Those when one reads it. But here, too, the proof can only lie in the present are told that the work they are now embarking upon is not experience as it evolves from the exercise. The final effect is not the result of a spontaneous or coincidental decision. On the con- that one 'sees' one's previous incarnation; the most important trary, karma placed each one of us in our position at this historic result is the strengthened resolve to meet the limitations in one's foment. Yet we do not come to it alone. We are part of a group: present life creatively. ^ct us look upon ourselves. At the end this is described as the experience o^2i festive moment of world history. Thus he places it 'n the context of time. Time, however, extends beyond any one individual or group. Time has an epoch-making effect for human ity as a whole. The importance of karma in relation to the founding of the school is thus highlighted at three levels: the individual, the 58 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S 59

relationship of the group and the epoch-making effect. Thus not so, karma would have no meaning - it would simply continue attention is drawn to a variety of karmic perspectives relating to the errors and entanglements of life without bringing to bear its the school. Before we look at each one in detail, we should try to harmonizing and healing effect. clarify the concept of karma. As a basis for this, we can take the first lecture in the cycle. Manifestations of Karma, given on 16 The forces that shape karma May 1910 in Hamburg.^ This lecture begins in a way that is most unusual for Steiner. He begins a cycle of eleven lectures with a What forces are at work in shaping karma? We can pursue this definition — the definition of karma. His subsequent remarks make question with some precision in the specific context of the words it clear that it is more of a characterization or descriptive approach quoted from the founding of the school. They were spoken by than an abstract definition. Rudolf Steiner after he had conducted a kind of opening ceremony Rudolf Steiner sets out five fundamental aspects of karma: that he described as, '... a kind of prayer addressed to those • to begin with two beings have an encounter that leads to a powers who, working through Imaginations, Inspirations and Intuitions, are to stand behind us as we take on this task."* developing relationship, the one has an effect on the other; We have been given quite precise details of this Sprayer' in the within this relationship each participant experiences the notes of three of those present: Caroline von Heydebrand, Herbert • theconsequences consequences of hisof theown resultant actions; relationship are not fully Hahn and Walter Johannes Stein. These may now be studied in the appendix to the recent publication of Study of Man.^ perceived at the time; • karma fulfils itself as a process, there is a period of time The entry in W.J. Stein's diary is pithy: between cause and effect; Beginning of the course. Opened by Dr Steiner, 9.00. the whole process has an inherent lawfulness that extends Strength - Angels beyond the momentary awareness of those affected, the Courage — Archangels lawful consequences are not consciously determined by the Light - Archai beings concerned. [He] thanks the ... (good spirits), who gave Molt the idea. The gods will work on with the consequences of our Some of these truths are beautifully reflected in fairy tales. deeds. Grimm's Mother Holle describes the adventures of a girl who If this was all we had to go on we would probably have greater responds to the situations she finds herself in out of her generosity difficulty in understanding what went on. We would, perhaps, of heart and selfless good nature, for which in the end she is know that the beings of the third hierarchy were the content of richly rewarded with gold. When her envious step-sister then the 'prayer,' and that the qualities of strength, courage and light contrives to replicate the same situations out of avarice she is had been related to them. We would, however, not know how the rewarded with pitch. third hierarchy is connected with the founding of the school, nor Karmic connections may only be approached in a chaste and would we know its significance for the karmic meeting of those selfless way. They are not accessible to calculating reason. They present. contain a greater wisdom than that of any human being. If it were It is the notes made by Caroline von Heydebrand and Herbert 60 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S 61

Hahn that will help us here. The most comprehensive and detailed Within this description we can recognize the three levels on report is Caroline von Heydebrand's, written shortly before her which those present were brought together by karma as indicated death in 1938. Its contents are in exact accord with the earlier and in the opening quotation from Rudolf Steiner. rather shorter diary entry of Herbert Hahn, which is undated. Hahn Thus the working of the third hierarchy as a whole becomes wrote a more extensive version in 1967, which is now perhaps the clear. The Angel has to do with the spirituality of the individual most widely known. It also covers broadly the same ground as the human being, with his own self. The Archangel works in connec other versions.^ We shall now take a closer look at Caroline von tion with groups of people. That generally involves working in a Heydebrand's version. According to this, Rudolf Steiner spoke of spatial dimension, for groups of human beings are generally geo the following sequence of events. graphically close to one another in a shared space. Spirits of Time on the other hand work in a particular epoch, affecting the whole We wish to form our thoughts in such a way that we may of humanity. The situation of the individual in space and time is be conscious that: made visible in the working of the third hierarchy. Behind every one of us stands his Angel, gently laying his hands on our heads. This Angel gives you the strength you need. The guiding role of the third hierarchy before birth Above your heads there hover the circling Archangels. The human being is deeply connected with the beings of the third They cany from one to the other what each has to give. hierarchy in all that concerns his individual development. They are They unite your souls. Thereby you are given the courage of particular help to him in the transition from his prebirth state of which you stand in need. (Out of this courage the into earthly life. In the small child we can still sense that this is a Archangels form a chalice.) The light of wisdom is given to us by the exalted beings matter of direct experience. The child encounters the world with a of the Archai, who are not limited to the circling move remarkable power of devotion. If one wished to characterize this devotion more precisely, one could describe the child's attitude as ments, but who, coming forth from primal beginnings, manifest themselves and disappear into primal distances. one of blissful confidence. More commonly, we speak of the child's power of imitation. The full importance of this becomes They reveal themselves only in form of drop (of light) in this place. (Into the chalice of courage there falls a drop of clear, however, when we realize that in this phase of child devel light, enlightening our times, bestowed by the ruling Spirit opment the fundamental capacities of the human being unfold. of our Age.) After all, it is imitation that leads the child to the activities of walking, speaking and thinking. Yet the child does not seem After the closure of the Stuttgart school, Caroline von Heyde- particularly choosy in this phase. brand told her Dutch friends about this event. Then she gave The manner in which one walks and speaks, the depin or them, as she did a little later to her English friends, a copy to superficiality of one's thinking, all have their effect on the child. preserve some memory of these events. These recollections are as It can be quite shocking for parents to see how particular expres helpful now as they were then in linking us with the foundation of sions or patterns of behaviour reappear in their children. Thus the the Waldorf School, and enabling us to recognize the powers it child might incline its head in a particular way while listening, or bears for the future. it might be unduly verbose, or again suddenly interrupt the speak- 63 62 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S er. One way or the other, parents will see themselves reflected in Higher learning their children. Thus the imitated environment of the child truly becomes its There is naturally a great difference between the activities of destiny. Such is the strength of the child's power of trust. It is walking, speaking and thinking before birth, and what the human total devotion, unquestioned, unchecked, uncritical. being does in this way after birth. Rudolf Steiner describes how in This quality of devotion has its roots in the prebirth experiences the course of evolution humanity has learned to think under the of the child. The child is not yet weaned from the spiritual world guidance of the Angels,® but then goes on to contrast the angelic to the extent that the adult is. That world is, after all, not so and human thinking. We think by laboriously going from point to remote. point in a process that takes time, Angels have an instinctive life The baby remains close to the spiritual world in the long of thought in which an entire thought constmction appears in periods of sleep it has after birth. Moreover the sleep of a little stantly as a reflective consciousness. child still has a different quality to that of an adult. It does not It becomes clear how much greater and more powerful the have anything like the amount of daytime experiences to digest, activity of thinking is in the Angel. They can see the situation in and so sleep is not so strong a contrast to the daytime experience its entirety, immediately and in perspective. And now, perhaps, it as is the case with the adult. Before its birth, the child had experi can also become clear why Rudolf Steiner describes the Angels in enced the work of spiritual beings preparing with him for earthly a particular attitude, and having a particular activity in the esoteric life. The beings of the third hierarchy were particularly helpful to ceremony at the beginning of Study of Man. it in learning to walk, speak and think. Rudolf Steiner describes Behind each of us stands his Angel, gently laying his how, on the way to birth, the Angels help prepare the develop hands on the head of each - this Angel gives you the ment for thinking after birth, the Archangels the development of strength you need. speech, and the Archai the development of walking.' Moreover, this happens in the symmetrical sequence implied. The Angels This quality of spiritual consciousness, the thinking of the stand at the beginning and at the end of this development. Before Angels, has its contents in the form of comprehensive pictures, or birth, the Archangels follow the Angels with their work, and after Imaginations. Rudolf Steiner was referring to these when he spoke birth they precede them. The same applies to the Archai. The of this ceremony as: Archai live in the element of will, which is connected with walk a kind of prayer addressed to those powers who, working ing, the Archangels introduce into speech the inner gesture of the feeling life with its flowing to and fro from the one to the other, through Imaginations, Inspirations and Intuitions, are to and the Angels form the development of thinking, which can stand behind us as we take on this task. survey all before it. It is because the human being follows these It is the Angels who can awaken the power of Imagination in spiritual beings with an attitude of devotion before it is bom that the human soul. By the same token, the Archangels' teaching of this attitude works on so strongly after birth. This is why the child speaking should not be thought of in terms of human speech, con is an imitative being in the first seven years of its life. versation or the exchange of words. With the Archangels, speech means a revelation of being that is communicated to the other being as an experience. A revelation of being means that one 65 64 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S being communicates itself to the other so that it completely fills The school community the other. It occupies the space of the other being. For this to take place the other being has to prepare itself. This preparing involves This then gives us exact and practical indications on how to deal the creating of space, the emptying of consciousness. This may with the question of karmic relationships in a school community: seem paradoxical, because in such circumstances ordinary human karma becomes three dimensional. First there is the dimension of consciousness is lost. However, the communication of being can the individual human being in the care of his Angel as he progres only take place in such circumstances. The process always ses from incamation to incarnation. The Angel preserves in him involves the quality of courage, for what has been described in the earthly lives, and has become individual substance. Thus is devel conversation of the Archangels requires the renunciation of all that oped the first of those members of the human being that are, as has been attained hitherto. It is a making oneself ready for yet, only present in him in seed form: the Spirit Self.' His own dev something completely new, other and unexpected. It is a matter of elopment gives the individual human being a certain power that he placing oneself at another's disposal. In this way, what is spoken can let stream into his work. He can bring strength to his work. of as the 'prayer' can come about: 'they unite your souls' as 'they It is not, however, merely a matter of demonstrating or exercis carry from one to the other what each has to give to the other.' ing this strength. Rather it is apparent in the work of the commu This activity is an Inspiring of those present. nity as it streams from one to the other. This is a whole new A third step is involved when we look at how the Archai teach quality. Strength is drawn into a weaving activity. What passes us to walk. The human earthly activity of walking is only an outer from the one to the other is woven into something that is shared. image of their spiritual activity. The Archai give impulses — their Thus something higher can come about which must be carried by being is Initiative. Just as the human being lives somewhat uncon a higher form of consciousness, the consciousness of a spirit of sciously in his will when he walks, so the beings of the Archai community, an Archangelic being. The human beings involved live in a purely spiritual element of will. Also, for human beings, create the conditions for this to come about. The individual any deed of will relies on a union of the doer and the deed, of releases the fruit of his spiritual striving, and places it at the dis exercising the will and changing the world. In the case of the posal of the others: in doing so, he releases into the community Archai, this union is a conscious, forming creation of being. Their his most intimate possession, his spiritual child, entrusting it to the deeds communicate being and give impulse to being. From their goodwill of the others - for he cannot know or predict what will region a community of human beings can receive an experience of come of it. He brings the fruits of his striving as a gift. As a true the purpose and potential of their own activity: 'the light of gift it comes with no strings attached, no demands, no intentions wisdom is given to us by the exalted beings of the Archai.' The and no claims. The revelation of being is always without reserve. necessary Intuitions come to those working in the community In this way, the gift acquires the quality of a sacrifice. The giver from the region of light. renounces all control over what is done with his contribution. It is not his will but that of the community. Anyone who devotes him self in this way to a group of people or to a situation needs courage, indeed is exercising courage. Letting go requires active courage. Nevertheless, positive examples given without ambition have an encouraging effect on others. In this connection courage 67 66 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S is both active and passive. Courage arises between people — it is kinds of intentions from his prebirthly state. He will have set him a phenomenon of relationships. Thus the germ is bom of the self new tasks and aims. Nevertheless, he is a temporal being in a substance that will appear in the future as Life Spirit. Today it process of development and, like everything in being, he bears still belongs to the nature of Archangelic beings. within him that which has not yet been transformed. It is critical for a community whether it serves its own pur In his work with others, he will surprise them with all kinds of poses, or sets out to be the instmment of a higher purpose. In the idiosyncrasies. Above all, he will surprise himself. In many ways former case, it sets itself apart from the whole and becomes a others will find it easier to see him as he is than he will himself. clique or an interest group. In the latter case, it develops a selfless They experience how he is in certain situations. What then hap quality, fulfilling itself as it fulfils its task. Therein lies the differ pens they will frequently describe as typical. They seem to expect ence between a mere grouping and a community. It depends on certain things of him, yet when they are asked why, it is not the quality of what unites people, and what type of tasks a com always so easy to explain. Such things are often completely in munity can undertake and fulfil. In such a community, everything comprehensible to the person concerned. *Why does this always depends on the setting of the aims. In this sense, it has something happen to me?' is often asked. of the quality of light. It is light that opens one*s eyes, revealing To find out what truly belongs to one's own person requires a things in their tme relationships and conditions. Without light, all process of thoroughgoing self-knowledge. There are certain action in the world is a blind prodding and probing. With the conditions to this. It must be honest, clear, consequent, fearless, founding of the Waldorf school, the intention is to allow the light conscientious and impartial. Humour is a great asset. The study of of the Spirit of the Age to be present in the vessel of the commu one's own personality should exert no greater fascination than a nity. This will make it possible to take up the tasks of humanity in preoccupation with a weather report from a distant continent. The our time - to meet the pressing need of our time in the light of investigator should look at himself *fTom above' and carry out the Spirit of the Age is the highest aim and task of all concerned. certain experiments. One of the experiments Rudolf Steiner re Only at this stage of development does the activity of human commended is to take the view that one placed oneself in those beings acquire sovereignty. Thus is revealed a first indication of very situations which at first seem incomprehensible, surprising that future member of the human being. Spirit Man, which has the and unpleasant. One's first reaction might be that one would never nature of the Archai. voluntarily place oneself in such a situation. Nevertheless, the experiment should be carried out deliberately, and with an attitude The strength of the individual of 'wait and see.' Then, after a while, one should carefully ob serve whether or not a particular impression is gained. One even Against this background we can trace the karmic aspects of work tually acquires the feeling that it is just these undesirable situa ing together in the school community much more concretely. tions that are ideally suited to bring about the very development There is, to begin with, the individual. What he can do for the that an intimate self-knowledge would say one most needed. One common cause, how he can take part, all this depends initially on thus appears to oneself as an unexpected opponent. Anyone who his personal capacities, his gifts. He acts out of the strength of his carries out such a process of self-observation will soon be very personality. He does, indeed, bring all that he has become, the much better informed as to what contribution he can make to the totality of his past, to bear. Naturally, he will set out with all community, or how best he can put his strength to use. 68 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S 69

The courage for community is all the more difficult for a community if there is also a Sancho Panza to accompany the blind man on his self-appointed cmsade. On the second level of karmic relationship, things look different. Karma always requires an attitude of affirmation. We have to We had noted that, on this level, we are dealing with groups of be able to say, 'Yes' to our own reality. The reality of a group people or geographical connections. They might be a class of can generally be experienced in its abundance of contradictory and pupils, a College of Teachers, a parent body, a particular school complementary elements. Generally one has just such a role to community, but also the local community in which a school is play oneself. situated, a country or even a language grouping. Today, in the age of individualism, many people believe they are not influenced by The spirit of the age such connections. Nevertheless, anyone who has lived in a foreign country and has experienced what a formative force is exerted by In his address given the evening before he began the lecture cycle the mother tongue or the culture of a locality will know just how Study of Man, Rudolf Steiner concluded with the words: strong an influence they can exert. It is remarkable that this can We can only draw from what can be gained today by be found even in quite small groups. Thus even Waldorf Schools in the same country can have quite strong differing regional directing our interest firstly to the great need of our time, and secondly, to the great tasks of our time, both of which characteristics. Even in cities where there are several schools one are greater than we can imagine.'" can observe distinct peculiarities in the corporate culture of each school. This is an example of an affirmative attitude to karma on the The karmic meaning of such groups is best observed when you level of the age we live in. The human being is bom into a parti can work regularly with a particular group. A College of Teachers cular epoch. Every epoch involves change and upheaval, yet some provides ample opportunity for observation of this kind. Much can epochs have this characteristic more than others. Our time cer be gained from observing polarities at work. Who, for example, is tainly shows no lack of tumultuous change. There are countless a given person's ^karmic opponent'? Or who always takes the complaints in pedagogical discussions about the demands made on opposite point of view? For the group as a whole, both people are teachers today. People generally point to the dissolution of social essential - only when they are together do they actually make ties, the annual increase in the divorce rate, the increasing number sense. Who is the slowest, who is the fastest? Who is progressive, of only children. The decay of social mores and norms are also who is conservative? Who is Prometheus, who is Epimetheus? part of this picture. Alongside this, one deplores the loss of Oddly enough, almost every community will contain people values, guidelines or a given sense of purpose. People often see a who were bom in a different region. Often they refer to their connection with the role of the media in our society. Even a nor chosen country with a certain ironic detachment. So what leads mally developing human soul is scarcely capable of dealing with them to these groups? It is difficult today to argue that they were the deluge of pictures, sounds and experiences to which the ado brought there by outer necessity; rather, in the sense of the previ lescent is exposed daily. One can point to a loss of communion ous exercise, they will be there for reasons of their own choosing. with nature, and to the prevalent alienation of the human being. One has to discover these reasons in an affirmative spirit. The Many teachers have observed that this can only lead to the dis altemative is to tilt at windmills like a latter-day Don Quixote. It solution of the individual ego, and with it the dignity of man. 70 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S 71

Are these teachers so entirely wrong? Surely not. But does such a view of the dramatic aberrations, perils and abysses of the Pedagogical practice present do justice to the whole picture of our age. Equally surely When the teacher becomes concemed with questions of karma the not! Or would a more human altemative be an idyll of harmoni first feeling he is likely to have when confronted with a child is, ous bliss in traditional order and secure social forms? It is only 'You are not a blank sheet of paper.' 'Something is living in you too easy to take leave of the tempests of our epoch and wish for which is seeking its further development from a prebirthly state the calmer waters of more comfortable circumstances. through the experiences of a new earthly life.' One is, however, a child of one's time. It is no coincidence that The question he may well then ask himself is, 'How can I help we have been bom into this time. On the contrary, it is our the child in this endeavour?' In order to do this one needs to prebirth intentions that have placed us where we are! All the know something about the child, something about its inner being. fiuious pace of change, the overtuming of old norms and tradi This pedagogical attitude is an achievement of the twentieth cen tions and the challenges these pose, were quite clear from that tury. This is quite generally the case even with certain individual perspective. What was wanted was the dawn of a new, spiritual teachers from whom one would least expect it. It is very directly foundation for life! This is, however, only possible if the old evident in the motto of the so-called progressive teachers: start traditional ways and norms are dissolved. These are the hallmarks with the child! This motto means, after all, that it is not the of a Michaelic Age that bears with it storms, disasters and stmg- educational whims of the adults that are to be imposed on the gles. For only the downfall of the old can bring about the rise of children, but rather that the child itself is the measure of what is what lies innermost in the soul. Presence of mind as a human required. attribute lives in a dynamic of its own creation. Only in affirming Rudolf Steiner also affirmed this attitude in the progressive the great need of our time will one be able to find the spiritual movement in his essay. Free Education and the Threefold Social sources and remedies with which to meet it. Dire need and human Order, in which he demands that no aspect of social order, politi dignity are two sides of the same coin. Among many other things cal or economic intentions should exert an influence on the child it belongs to the Michaelic Age in which we live that each of us during its education. Only the individual predispositions of the take up his cross, and with it the certainty that no one is given child and the general laws of development (which always involve more than he can bear. For Michael is the countenance of Christ. some degree of social adjustment) should determine the way in Thus the threefold karmic perspective that appears at the begin which education is carried out." Such considerations are prevalent ning of the school foundation is the affirmation of the strength of in the way teaching has developed today. Yet even though there the individual, the gaze into the mirror of the community and the may well be a consensus on this today, one problem remains to be taking up of the tasks that face us in the age in which we live. On solved, namely the question, 'Who are you?.' this basis, each of us can develop a concrete impression of what is To answer this question, the educator today has to learn to read the karma of the individual, the community and the age. karma. The book of humanity lies open before him, the symbols are written in the child, its surroundings, life circumstances, friends, enemies and the times in which it lives. But the educator must notice them, must put the letters together, must learn to read, must see and understand connections. In the moment of encounter. 73 72 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S

he must recognize the influence of the past, and the striving From space to time towards the future. He must, at the very least, awaken in himself a kind of new instinct, a kind of divining receptivity for this task. It would be a mistake to believe that the work described above in He will be helped in this if he undertakes exercises of the kind forming a picture of the child's individuality is the end of the referred to above in respect of his own karmic disposition. Once story. Rather it is only a first stage. This picture, however care more, it is a matter of taking a dispassionate interest in the totality fully made, will only contain a part of the truth. It is necessary to of the life circumstances and impulses of the individual human complete this picture by setting it against the pictures made by being. To direct one's teaching on the basis of the requirements of others. That is the purpose of the child study in the Teachers' the child, one has first of all to get to know the child. The first Meeting. The one shares with the other his impressions of the indications that can provide a guideline in this will be gathered child. In this way, those present open each other's eyes and, in from the harvest of loving and careful observations. doing so, each of them enriches, changes and develops his view of The next step involves the creation of a picture of the child that the child. Enriched by the views of others, the picture comes back makes sense. This picture should come about quite independently to its initiator, who has now modified his view through those of of personal inclinations, sympathy or antipathy, even of pedagogi the others, and only now is in a position to accompany the child's cal intentions. As in any picture which, despite all appearances, development with a true understanding. can only exist in two dimensions, one detail stands beside another. From time to time one hears from Colleges what a remarkable Nothing is obscured, nothing is permitted to conceal anything else. effect such child studies have. They report significant effects. The evaluation of what is there is based on the relationship of one Successful child studies do not seek for quick results or immediate detail to another, and on the impression given by the whole. This strategies. They provide space for ideas. Such ideas may take time inner consonance, which allows one to discover the composition to reveal themselves. Often they come ovemight or some time of the picture, enables us to understand it. Having once worked in later. Attentive colleagues will suddenly notice that a real change such a way, one will always find that one's personal relationship has taken place in the development of the child, and on looking to the child undergoes a change immediately afterwards. If the back can see the connection. study has been carried out in the scrupulous way indicated, the The child study in the College of Teachers has become an relationship will be closer and more intimate. instrument. The College has formed something like a vessel into What is not at issue here is to find out 'who' the child may which an idea that will further the child's development can be have been in a previous life, and 'where' and 'how.' Appropriate poured. This process involves no self-deluding mysticism. It efforts and a selfless devotion to exercises will always be able to comes about through clear and conscious practice. Those who take reveal further details of this type, but sensation mongering and part can see and understand what is going on with their thinking. curiosity will render all such efforts fruitless. All such 'interests' The more unambiguous, exact and thorough the observations that are quite irrelevant, if not superfluous, to the pedagogical task. have flowed into the child study, the more productive will be the Karma research requires a chaste attitude, and the work of the results. educator is directed towards shaping the future of the human being. Whatever is fruitful for that will reveal itself in the course of study. 74 WORKING WITH DESTINY A N G E L S A M O N G S T U S 75

A community with spiritual foundations This is a phenomenon of the third level. To make visible what really matters requires that every individual contributes in a The experiences referred to above in the area .of education show specific and unique way. At this level, the value of the individual how fruitful it can be to take account of karma and of the beings loses itself in the whole, for without the individual the totality of the third hierarchy. These things can also be applied to the could not be formed. From a spiritual point of view, community whole school community and other social connections, for they forming depends on unity. Unity in plurality — that is the principle contain the fundamentals of all social forms that have spiritual of modem contemporary community forming. It can only come foundations. This is true on three levels. about in a dynamic process in which the three layers are always We start with the individual. He would like to be accepted into addressed simultaneously and in different ways. One person will the circle of those who are working together. He has to be al gain strength for his work from clear aims and tasks. With another lowed the possibility of taking initiative and carrying responsi it is his strength that brings him to eventual clarity. A third will bility. He must be able to take his work seriously and to do it find strength and clarity in the experience of team work and without constantly being questioned by supervision, censure or comradeship. reservations. Naturally there are common goals that have brought people together in the first place. But these goals do not have a A contemporary approach to karma guarantee of validity for all eternity. They must be continually reaffirmed at all three levels. A community that wishes to take karma into account must work The second level is that of co-operation. The individual is in this way. The human being is an integrated being, living as an dependent on being able to exchange with the other members of individual in space and time. From his previous earthly lives he the community. Where it is not possible to develop a common has created the circumstances and tasks of his present life. Posi consciousness, where there is no meeting of the community as a tive community building, which seeks to help achieve karmic whole, there is no possibility of experiencing the second level. challenges, must be based on affirmation, acceptance of the other This is one of the realities of community building. It also depends and of one's own humanity, both of which always belong to us. on the tasks involved, on the people involved and on the appropri For that is the meaning of karma: my surroundings belong to me. ate ways of working. To have an experience of a language group I am my surroundings. The fulfilment of karma, and one's tasks, ing, it is not necessary to meet all its members and be in regular means the acceptance of one's fellow human beings, means touch with them. For a College of Teachers, however, this experi recompense, reconciliation and healing. Thus the five aspects of ence is essential. Where common tasks are exclusively delegated karma referred to at the beginning come to fulfilment: to committees, where there is no conunon study, and those con cerned only meet each other in passing, there cannot be the stimu human beings meet and have an effect on each other; lating and correcting influence of the others. The forming of a this has its consequence for each individual; chalice can only be achieved when people work together directly, this is not at first apparent; or the shards will consider themselves chalices. Cliques always time passes between cause and effect; believe that they alone have found what really matters. the after-effects are other than what was expected. In fact, what really matters can only be found in the totality. 77 76 WORKING WITH DESTINY

Practical work on the karma of the individual by groups of people, or for the time in which we find ourselves, can only be carried out in a healthy way if it is done in the spirit of humility, faithfulness and integrity. Working on karma in the context of present day Karma and the Internet western civilization amounts to practical Christianity.

Dorit Winter

References Our era has seen an escalation of the rate of change so 1. Steiner, Rudolf, Study of Man. OA 293. What is referred to here (see also drastic that all possibilities of evolutionary accommodation notes 2, 4 and 5 below) appears only in the latest German edition: have been short-circuited ... We have created the techno Allgemeine Menschenkunde, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Domach 1992. 2. Ibid. logy that not only enables us to change our basic nature, 3. Steiner, Rudolf, The Manifestations of Karma, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1984. but that is making such change all but inevitable.' 4. Steiner, Rudolf, Study of Man. 5. Ibid. Perhaps it is not intemperate to suggest that both the rate of 6. Hann's reference in 1967 to the 'Teaching Staff is not found in the early change and the inevitability of the change to our basic nature may notes of Stein, Heydebrand and Hahn. The latter refer to all those present, be measured by the upsurge of Internet use by anthroposophists. including Emil and Berta Molt as school sponsors and parents, as well as other anthroposophists who had been invited for the occasion. This is clear To wit: the next Directory of the Anthroposophical Society in from Heydebrand's text referred to above. North America will include e-mail addresses; the Goetheanum has 7. Steiner, Rudolf, Man's Being, His Destiny and World Evolution, GA 226, a home page on the Internet; Waldorf teachers in California are in Lecture of 18 May 1923. Anthroposophic Press, New York 1966. on-line dialogue with counterparts in Brazil.^ 8. Steiner, Rudolf, The Spiritual Guidance of Humanity, Anthroposophic Press, N e w Y o r k 1 9 7 0 . Constantly striving to be accepted as legitimate by the culture 9. The terms 'Spirit Self,' 'Life Spirit' and 'Spirit Man' were used by Rudolf that surrounds us, we are already part of it. The computer culture Steiner to designate future stages of human evolution. These are described permeates our habit lives just as necessarily as substances in the more fully in his book Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1973. ID. The version reproduced here is based on the incomplete notes made by Rudolf air permeate our physical organs. Consciousness about food, Meyer and those made by Emil Molt and Karl Stockmeyer. The text was by water, air, warmth and the rest of our physical needs is established Erich Gabert. It may be found in the 1992 edition of Study of Man and within the general culture under the rubric 'health food,' thus some earlier editions. 11. Steiner, Rudolf, "Aufsatze fiber die Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus allowing anthroposophists to purchase organic (if not biodynamic) und zur Zeitlage," 1915-1921, Domach 1982, GA 24. The Renewal of the foods in non-anthroposophical shops; and the threefold nature of Social Organism, Anthroposophic Press, 1985. the human being has been generally recognized (if not clearly understood) so that soul and spirit are acceptable terms in the relatively well-established realms of altemative medicine and even alternative education. However, the fourfold nature of the human being is a more occult reality, and the etheric body still a largely 78 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 79

hidden concept. So whereas the culture that surrounds us, and of flourish except in deep time ... We are destroying this deep which we are part, contains small, perhaps tenuous, but neverthe time. Not by design perhaps, but inadvertently. Where the less viable 'alternative' parklands, which may even include anthro- electronic impulse rules, and where the psyche is condi posophical preserves, awareness of the etheric body exists only tioned to work with data, the experience of deep time is within the anthroposophical world view. impossible.^ In the world at large, counter-computer culture voices are rising to question the computer's impact on our bodily, soul and spiritual This is a remarkable passage. It speaks of knowledge of the health. The introductory quotation, for example, is from Sven human being. Birkerts seems to be very close to saying: where Birkerts' eloquent and perceptive book. The Gutenberg Elegies: Ahriman rules, and where the soul has been conditioned to work The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. In it, he deals wisely with information, experience of the etheric is impossible. He does with the difference between information and wisdom. His book not call it etheric; he lacks the concept. Nevertheless, 'deep time,' achieves a process which engages. Even its reviewers become as characterized in The Gutenberg Elegies, is Birkerts' acknow aware: ledgement, albeit unconsciously, of that realm. Another disceming observer within that surrounding, all- Like a painter's slow build-up of tones, his gentle over- pervasive culture is Clifford Stoll, a computer security expert, and lappings of thoughts and themes serve to deepen his therefore a computer culture insider. Insider though he is, his conclusions without hammering at them ... What [Sven] Birkerts does in The Gutenberg Elegies is to put his soul perspective is not limited to the two dimensions of the computer into words. (Boston Sunday Globe) screen; he is an astrophysicist and conversant with the stars, and his background and training in the astronomical dimensions of His writing, which questions and muses at the leisurely space and time give his reflections a deep, broad context. His pace of human speech, and which evinces both intelligence book, Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information and feeling, reveals a complex individual personality, Highway, is a refreshingly straightforward stripping away of the providing that kind of connectedness that a thousand e-mail emperor's clothes. 'It's an unreal universe,' he says of cyberspace, messages cannot. (San Francisco Chronicle) 'a soluble tissue of nothingness."* Stoll, too, honours process. He does not talk about etheric either, but he, too, recognizes the loss What terrific writing ... In my more melancholy mood I of life forces when he later says: hear deeper in The Gutenberg Elegies a most mesmeric music, and I shudder from the resonance these essays Lotus eaters, beware. Life in the real world is far more generate in my heart. (Bloomsbury Review) interesting, far more important, far richer than anything It seems worth quoting these responses to Birkerts' book, you'll ever find on a computer screen. because each in its own way manifests 'resonance.' Resonance is Stoll talks about the real world, and about real time, and about a quality Birkerts values. By it he means response, comprehen real experiences in the real time of the real world. And his book sion, engagement: is a relaxed and unpretentious but very well-informed expose of the computer's annihilation of real experience in the real time of Resonance - there is no wisdom without it... and it cannot the real world. 'You could have been planting a tomato garden,' 80 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 81 he goes on to tell those locked in to logging-on. 'You're viewing through our sleep. From deep down in the heart I hear the a world that doesn't exist.' Like Birkerts and others with similarly voice that says, 'Refuse it.'' astute perspectives, Stoll has found resonance.^ But why depend on the surrounding culture for such insight? Birkerts' struggle is deeply touching, the more so because he Such perspectives are welcome; but they cannot be expected to does not have Anthroposophia to support him. Yet, knight-like, he elucidate the computer's effect on the etheric realm. is true to Sophia: 'My core fear,' he writes, 'is that we are ... giv In 1913 Rudolf Steiner spoke about how much more compli ing up on wisdom, the struggle for which has for millennia been cated than in previous eras life had become.® Useless to speculate central to the very idea of culture ...' (p.228). on how exact his knowledge of impending technology was. But is Elsewhere he puts it like this: such speculation really necessary? Don't we have enough spiritual The old growth forests of philosophy have been logged and scientific characterizations of life at the end of the century to see the owl of Minerva has fled ... Wisdom has nothing to do that the computer chip is part of a phenomenon that was foreseen, with the gathering or organizing of facts - that is basic. and for which anthroposophy itself is the antidote? And isn't part (P-75) of that antidote being able to call the devil by his name, and being able to discern his interference with our true, human potential? The Gutenberg Elegies abounds with profound musings which Birkerts, although presumably not a student of spiritual science, partake of the sort of insights that conscious thinking and aware does, in fact, call the devil by his name. The final chapter of his ness of its origins can achieve. Birkerts discems cultural pheno book is called, 'Coda: The Faustian Pact.' mena and posits a cause. The devil, says Birkerts, wants our souls. 'Coda' is Birkerts' Rudolf Steiner states cause with certainty: 'No-one likes it gentle but powerful assessment of the danger that has already better than Ahriman that we fail to grow wiser. carried us away. He struggles with the devil, page by page. My recent reading of The Road Ahead, by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation, the leading The devil no longer moves about on cloven hooves, provider of software for personal computers worldwide, convinced reeking of brimstone ... He claims to want to help us all me that Mr Gates is not so much the provider of the tool as the along to a brighter, easier future, and his sales pitch is very witless tool for the provider. smooth. I was, as the old song goes, almost persuaded. I Less asleep, Stoll and Birkerts feel dis-ease. Clifford Stoll does saw what it could be like, our toil and misery replaced by a not go so far as to implicate Mephisto in the success of the vivid, pleasant dream. Fingers tap keys, oceans of fact and sensation get downloaded, are dissolved through the personal computer, but he does ask keenly. Which is the tool, the nervous system. Bottomless wells of data are accessed and computer or the user?' Birkerts, tracking the demise of reading, writes, 'As a writer, I naturally feel uneasy.' But neither of these manipulated, everything flowing at circuit speed. Gone the sensitive phenomenologists can discover the source of their mal rocks in the field, the broken hoe, the gruelling distances. aise. It is their embattled etheric bodies, their own awareness of 'History,' said Stephen Dedalus, 'is a nightmare from what Rudolf Steiner foresaw: which I am trying to awaken.' This may be the awakening, but it feels curiously like the fantasies that circulate Modem man ... observes the material world [he] uses his 82 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 83

intellect to establish the interconnections between its depends on the body can take place there. You can't do phenomena and believes that all its riddles are solved in yoga asanas in cyberspace, for instance. this way, never realising that he is simply groping in a Incontrovertibly there are no bodies in cyberspace. Less incon- phantasmagoria. But this way of working coarsens and dries up his ether body, with the ultimate result that the trovertibly, there is no life force there. And least incontrovertibly of all, actual thinking, actual spiritual activity, cannot exist in Mephistophelian powers, like a second nature, will attach themselves to him now and in times to come.' cyberspace. Whereas we would expect to find 'life force' linked to 'body' in Yoga Journal, spiritual scientific study obliges us to connect 'life force' to spiritual activity, that is, thinking. That time has come. We have lost so much vitality and ima The Yoga article points out that, 'Spiritual and religious groups gination that we hardly notice the price of being plugged in. of every variety ... are seizing the virtual day.' We anthropo- Mephisto/Ahriman has made it possible for humanity to invent such a neat, cheap, effective, attractive and powerful logging saw sophists seem to fit that description. Interestingly enough, and not unrelated to the anthroposophists' cyberdilemma, the Yoga Journal that we are dying to use it, and heedless of the price. The price far exceeds the old growth forest and the Owl of Minerva; it announces its new Web sites in insets to articles questioning Internet euphoria, and pointing out its dangers. 'Can be terribly includes the supersensible realities that gave rise to them. We are drying up. Our life forces are being dried up. The feebler addicting,' warns Yoga Journal: and, underneath, a half page box our life forces, the weaker our thinking; the weaker our think with a large red heading: YOGA JOURNAL GOES ONLINE. It seems almost incomprehensible that a journal dedicated to *a ing, the feebler our life forces. *The world ether,' said Rudolf Steiner, Ms, in reality, the carrier of thoughts.''® He also said, quality' of any sort should attempt to promote that quality via the *Once you have really made the effort to experience thinking, Internet, especially when its announcement of such Internet promotion abuts an article that includes the assertion that experi you are no longer in the world you were in before, but in the etheric world.'" Doesn't it follow then, that once this effort is pre ence of quality is what you cannot have in cyberspace. Such phenomena of abstraction, of inconsistency between ideal empted, our thinking no longer partakes of the etheric world? Or that as the etheric world is sapped, thinking becomes ever more and practice, are common. But, unlike the editors of Yoga Journal brittle. The desiccation is subtle and persistent. But not yet en (and the innumerable other promoters of cyberspiritualism), spiritual scientists have a teacher who spoke plainly about the tirely unnoticed. information, once a part of life, has swollen like a genie rising phenomenon that now surrounds us and of which we are a part. from a bottle until it threatens to become life itself.''^ This is a Man will... chain a second being to his heels. clear formulation. It means: what used to be recognized as lifeless, Accompanied by this second being, he will feel the urge to is beginning to be considered Mife itself This observation is think materialistic thoughts, to think not through his own gaining coverage in the alternative media. The March/April issue being, but through the second being who is his companion. of Yoga Journal puts it this way: Extraordinary words when taken in the context of the personal The life force, like the sacred, exists within us. But because computer. They were spoken by Rudolf Steiner in 1914.'^ Making there are no bodies in cyberspace, no mind-body work that the personal computer a personal companion, that exactly de- 84 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 85

scribes what Bill Gates intended from the age of thirteen, and pen. Imperfect perhaps, possibly inconsistent, but unique. And what he has succeeded in doing far beyond his wildest dreams. when your pen pauses, your eyes naturally seek the middle or far Back when I was a teenager, I envisioned the impact that distance. You do not sublimate yourself in perfectly spaced fonts low-cost computers could have. *A computer on every desk on a screen, you do not lose touch with what surrounds you. and in every home,' became Microsoft's corporate mission, Goethe and Emerson walked to find the thoughts and words they and we have worked to help make that possible.''* sought. With my pencil I can negotiate thickets that seem impene trable when I scroll through them on my screen. Bill Gates' success has made him 'the richest man in America.' But the physical flow of ink and the flow of thought it mani Is he awake when he says 'we'? fests are not all that is eliminated by the digital percussion on the And so it is now commonplace to 'think through the second keyboard. The flow of language itself is dashed. E-mail scrambles being who is our companion,' our PC. This writer's experience language into bits, acronyms, abbreviations and jargon. Even when may be symptomatic. For years I eschewed pen and pencil, prefer it is not on the computer screen, language today is fragmented. ring the electronic tool with its perennially clean copy. I have Chipped. Loosed from its grammatical moorings. Severed from deliberately kept the paraphernalia limited. I still use a 386SX the 'language sense.' According to 'netiquette,''^ it is considered notebook with 1 megabyte RAM; WordPerfect 5.1. Any day now rude to write in full sentences. A time-waster. Information and I intend to update this equipment. Primitive it may be, but it is speed are what count, not syntax that reveals thought. compelling all the same, and addictive. On my sabbatical last The lack of syntax and the attendant lack of thought is so year, I travelled a lot. Everywhere I went, my 'companion' went common and so obvious it seems hardly worth mentioning. It is, too. This article may be the turning point. I write these words now however, a crucial phenomenon, and a perfect example is being in humble pencil. The paragraph is raked by crossed-out words digital [sic] by Nicholas Negroponte. His book is an enthusiastic and phrases. Looking back I can see the rhythm of my toil; can affirmation of bits. Bits, he tells us, are replacing atoms. Physical see the dead ends and the tilling that preceded meaning unfolding objects and experience are being improved and replaced virtu into consciousness. No clean copy here. Not yet. ally. 'The change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstop Are such traces important? Noting the evidence on this manu pable.' Yes. But whereas this trend is a cause for concem to those script page, I see now that the answer, for me, is: yes. The in still capable of flowing thought, it is a matter of celebration for volvement that came from ploughing, tilling, raking, weeding, Negroponte, whose book, although it consists of atoms, is con pruning, cutting, transplanting and allowing time for composting ceived in bits. Many of its chapters are less than two pages long. and for watching the gradual ripening did make a difference to the They are grouped, but not related. They have clever titles. The fruit of my labours.'^ phrases are slick, the sentences primitive, the syntax casual. There More self-evident but just as unacknowledged is the physical are lots and lots of info-bits. And the thoughts are definitely bits difference between writing by hand and tapping on the keys. as well: When you use a pen or pencil, you move your arm across the A bit has no colour, size, or weight, and it can travel at the page, you see the letters traced in your own hand as you create them. You see that they are yours. It is your handwriting, indi speed of light. It is the smallest atomic element in the vidual enough to incriminate you, that flows from the tip of your DNA of information. It is a state of being, (p. 14) 86 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 87

Surely this is a pertinent example of what Rudolf Steiner 'This was a serious opponent,' said Kasparov, who struggled, described in 1913 when he said, but prevailed in spite of the machine's ability to 'analyse 200 mil lion positions per second,' a capacity called 'brute force compu It is natural that in this era, when we are surrounded by the tation.' Ironically, this brute force 'included every game Kasparov din of machines, human beings start thinking about ever played, so in that sense he was playing against himself.' A everything in a materialistic way." matador who had programmed the bull. 'Brute force.' 'Two 'End-of-the-centuiy materialism' is almost a cliche in our hundred million moves per second.' How did Kasparov win? circles. But the phrase 'materialistic thinking' gains new force The computer was unable to leam during the toumament. when considered in the backlit glow of our companionable ma Kasparov could, and did. In the final game, he exploited what he chines as more and more of us rely more and more on them for had learned in the previous games about the computer's weak the solutions to an ever-expanding variety of problems. nesses. 'At one point, for example, I changed slightly the order of Machine-like thinking is spreading. The more prevalent it a well-known opening sequence.'^® The computer could not becomes, the less it is discemed. Like smog, it infiltrates consum- respond in kind. ingly. Clifford Stoll has noticed; and he is unequivocal: 'You Had Kasparov been thinking only such thoughts as can be subject your own thinking pattems to those of the computer.''® acquired by a computer program in what is called 'knowledge Obviously Stoll's own thinking is not yet subjugated; he resists capture,' he would have lost. What enabled him to win was his being programmed. Though 'of the family,' he balked at Gates' unmachine-like ability to leam through process, Irom experience. gate. His common sense, his sense of life, his zest for life, his So then 'thought and creativity' are not 'simply a glorified com etheric forces reared up. putation.' And yet, the machine-generated question, 'to what Others, less robust perhaps, are less fortunate. Their thinking extent is human thought and creativity simply a glorified computa becomes patterned. And they are unaware. Human beings who tion?' drives the powerful research of artificial intelligence and immerse themselves in computers seem to absorb some of the underlies the machine-instilled illusion that computers can teach computer's characteristics. They are of the family, and family tics children. and idiosyncrasies are mindlessly accepted. The Road Ahead and If children were machines, perhaps computers could teach them. being digital (as well as Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of But (and it does not go without saying; it is increasingly disputed) the Internet by Sherry Turkle), at least, confirm this. The com children are not glorified computers. They are, however, prey for puter, with its relentless consequentiality, affects its users. The the machine and the 'edutainment industry' servicing the machine. 'second being who is [our] companion,' exacts a tribute; we are It is a one-way influence. PCs are not affected by their human made to think like it. companions. They are not subject to the weather. They are reli Not surprising, then, this question: 'To what extent is human able. That is one of their greatest assets. They do not have visceral thought and creativity simply a glorified computation?'" This reactions. They do not have viscera. The chip that stores their question, which depends on the computer for its existence, was smarts is silicon based. They neither bloom nor fade. In them, raised by a joumalist in the aftermath of the recent chess tourna nothing grows. Through them, thoughts are subtly relieved of ment between World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov, and Deep elasticity. Computers, especially those hooked to the Internet, Blue, a chess program. bristle with information; they have gargantuan memories, but they 89 88 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET cannot leam. Especially from the children they are supposed to itself, that we leam best by experience, hard though that school educate, they leam nothing at all. They cannot interact. may be. The 'hard knocks of life' are proverbial. But anthropo- sophy scientifically informs the proverb. The concept of karma What's most important in a classroom? A good teacher and its laws are fundamental to all of Rudolf Steiner s work. interacting [emphasis mine] with motivated students ... Karma is the path of our leaming. It is in the context of karma Computers promise short cuts to higher grades and painless that the aforementioned description of the infant's ability to learn learning. Today's edutainment software comes shrink- to look into the light occurs. The achievement is of such signi wrapped in the magic mantra: 'makes learning fun.' ficance that it may justify an infant death. The brief incamation Equating teaming with fun says that if you don't enjoy was a karmic necessity for a being who, in its previous incar yourself, you're not teaming. I disagree. Most teaming nation, had been blind. Now it leams to see; 'in this case, the isn't fun. Leaming takes work. Discipline. Responsibility ... incamation must be counted as part of the previous one. you have to do your homework. Human beings leam. We leam from life, even from a brief life. This could be a Waldorf teacher, someone familiar with the Tantalizing as is the plethora of facts available via the Intemet, we concept of 'responsive tiredness,'^' but it is Clifford Stoll, in an are in danger of mistaking the accessing and downloading for op-ed article in the New York Times, 19 May 1996. For Stoll, as leaming. The experience of leaming that we take through the gate for the Waldorf pupil, and the Waldorf teacher, the hard work of of death is just that, the experience of leaming. As regards what leaming is the fun. we leam at the computer terminal, therefore, it depends entirely on For beginning students in anthroposophical institutions, the what we do as we sit in front of a keyboard, watching digitally realization that mystery wisdom cannot be memorized sometimes motivated pixels distribute themselves electronically across the comes as a difficult surprise. Quite often, students entering the screen. San Francisco Waldorf Teacher Training with successful academic Rudolf Steiner points to this: backgrounds are encumbered by the expectation that their proved there is still something else to consider in respect of karma memorization skills and the information they acquired at univer - something that... was referred to as the process of sity will facilitate their approach to spiritual science. Instead they ripening, the acquisition of a real knowledge of life. It is encounter 'responsive tiredness' and the stmggle of transformation well to consider how we grow wiser. We can become wise that accompanies true leaming. through our faults and mistakes and this is something for Rudolf Steiner makes this comparison: which we can only be thankful. In one and the same life it In general we underestimate the leaming ability of a child is not often that we have the oppoitunity of applying the in the first days of its life. When a child leams to look into wisdom gained from our mistakes and it therefore remains the light, more capacities are necessary than for everything with us as potential power for a later life. But the wisdom, one leams in the first semester at university.^^ the real knowledge of life that we acquire - what is it, in reality? ... It amounts to what we have acquired from Leaming, then, is a capacity with which the newbom child experience - that and nothing more, to begin with.^'' arrives, a spiritual capacity. But human leaming must take place on earth. We know that the greatest lessons are taught by life In the hard school of life where we leam from our faults and KARMA AND THE INTERNET 91 90 WORKING WITH DESTINY mistakes, one identifying feature of a karmic relationship is that it Just about everything anthroposophy tells us about reincamation is a relationship which provides us with 'suffering and hindrances' and karma - which, it could be argued, is its most significant con sufficient to awaken us. That is learning. Getting flamed on the tribution to modem culture — confirms the importance of human Internet is not a substitute. beings interacting with each other. Actually interacting with each In life, we use our will-motivated limbs to walk towards these other. So vast is Rudolf Steiner's research on this subject, that any relationships. We may be asleep to our destiny, but through our particular quotation may obscure rather than illuminate. Neverthe feet we may wake to it. Shackled 'by the heel' to our 'compa less, to help focus our considerations, here are two aspects: nion,' we forfeit this freedom to move into life, and accept, in Not even fifty years would suffice for you to be able to stead, the crude substitute of virtual movement, virtual encounter. define what you can experience in five minutes as the Concerned witnesses, such as Stoll and Birkerts, who are part relations of life between one human being and another. ... of, but not party to, the culture at large, are confronting the issue But if, with the help of anthroposophy, we investigate what of 'interactivity' by pointing out that there is nothing either 'inter' one can really experience in five minutes but cannot or 'active' about cyberspace encounters. Theirs is a growing describe in fifty years, we find that it is what rises up from chorus: the previous earth-life or series of earth-lives into the Granted, the Internet brings people together in ways that present life of the soul, and what is exchanged. This airplanes don't. But if we want a fundamental change for indefinite, indefinable element that comes upon us when the better in human relations, it will take more than the we meet as adults is what shines through from earlier lives presence of a new technology to do it.^^ on earth into the present.^' The real problem is the realization that this electronic External life will become increasingly complicated - that world is, in the end, a way of encouraging separation as cannot be prevented - but souls will find their way to one much as community.^^ another through deepened inner life. ... Outer laws and institutions will make life so complicated that men may Oh, the Internet is wonderful. You almost don't have to well lose their bearings altogether. But by realizing the leave your house. tmth of the law of karma, the knowledge will be bom in the soul of what it must do in order to find, from within, With crowds turning museums into pressure-cooker its path through the world.^° experiences, many people may wonder if they're not better off buying the CD-ROM and looking at Cezanne in the relative peace of their own homes. They better think If, then, souls are to be prevented from finding their paths through the world, they must be prevented from realizing the tmth of the again.^® law of karma. Without this knowledge in their souls, without a Heartfelt though these admonitions are, the truth in them causes deepened inner life, human beings will not find their way to one even greater concern when the karmically chaotic consequences of another. If they are prevented from finding one another, the Prince such substitute encounters become evident out of spiritual science. of Darkness, and not the Lord of Karma, will reign. How to divert humanity from the 'indefinable element that The implications are great. 93 92 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET

comes upon us when we meet'? How to divert souls from ^finding another fundamental aspect of karma that the Intemet, with its their way to one another through deepened inner life'? How to circuits always busy, debilitates: divert human beings from the 'knowledge of the laws of human The working of karma, as described by Steiner, is a karma that will be bom in the soul'? How to divert spiritual rhythmic process, reflected in daily life in waking and scientists from the experience of the significance of experience sleeping, experiencing and forgetting, and coming to full and learning that spiritual science is? expression in the great rhythms of incamation into the Humanity is being diverted by a glittering device of irresistible physical world and excamating into the spiritual world. allure and supernatural success. An electronic encounter through the 'second being' is the Birkerts, unknowingly, catches the contrast: 'Electricity is, perfect trick. It not only substitutes 'interactivity' for meetings in implicitly, of the moment — now.' the earthly dimensions of space and time, it also seems to liberate 'The computer tantalizes me with its holding power,'^' admits us from the effort of thinking. In both instances, we are tricked Sherry Turkle, the computer sociologist, admitting at the same into confusing Internet-bound independence from time and space time that the power she is studying has her in thrall. One of her with spirituality. subjects goes further: 'When I MUDded with the computer I never In a 1970 article in The Golden Blade John Davy, a powerful got tired.' [MUD = /nulti wser domain, that is, an Intemet 'chat anthroposophical thinker, wrote: room.'] In front of the artificial light of the computer screen we remain obsessively awake; yet we become bone weary, our joints Thinking and reflective memory allow the inner life to be ache, our eyes sting, we forget to eat, to sleep, to breathe. freed from the here and now, to roam space and time Electricity is the obvious operative for technology today. beyond the immediate situation of the body in space and its Conventional physics explains some of its power. Spiritual science experiences of the moment. provides deeper insights into its inorganic force. Rudolf Steiner Written before the electronic obliteration of space and time explains, through spiritual scientific facts seen in the context of offered by the Internet, Davy's characterization of spiritual activity the cosmic struggle for man's souls, how 'Human thinking has could be mistaken for an Intemet ad. It describes, with uncanny been altogether enwebbed by electricity. accuracy, how the second being thinks through us when we surf If the chemical supersensible highs and hippie communes of the the net: 'freed from the here and now, roaming through space and sixties did not manage to divert a whole generation from the time.' Of course Davy was not talking about the Intemet, but the spiritual activity of thinking and the responsibility of karmic applicability of his words to it shows us how neat a trick the encounter, perhaps the electronic subnatural 'companion' of the Intemet is: its least visible virtual reality is its virtual spirituality. nineties and the void of cyberspace will. Likewise, interactivity in cyberspace, because it does not And anthroposophists are not unaffected. On the contrary. The require people to meet in the same place at the same time, smacks World Wide Web has every reason to strangle us: of spiritual encounter. That, of course, is the purest 'phantas Opposition to anthroposophy in every domain will increase magoria' - what to Birkerts, with his profound sense of time, feels in the outside world, just because it is in the highest degree 'like the fantasies that circulate through our sleep.' necessary for our age, and because what is the most In his article, Davy, in an unrelated context, deftly summarizes 94 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 95

essential at any particular time always encounters the e-mail is a professional necessity, the Internet a prime research strongest resistance.^^ tool. And its convenience is indisputable. Can we learn to use it without contorting karma, our own or that of others? That is what So spoke Rudolf Steiner in a 1912 lecture cycle fittingly called, we must leam to do. Learn to do. With consciousness, we may Reincarnation and Karma: Their Significance in Modern Culture. mitigate the harm. Two years later, in Technology and Art, he pointed out in no The Net is popular. Its population is now increasing at 10% per uncertain terms, that technology was here to stay and inescapable month. On the whole, it seems, the people 'in dialogue on the and that trying to escape was no solution: Internet do not know each other. Do they get to know one another as they tap their keyboards and watch their screens? Does the It would be the wotst possible mistake to say that we cybemauts? Unlikely. should resist what technology has brought into modem life, ^ 5,;,, ,,3^^ ,^2 option Birkerts favours: that we should protect ourselves from Ahriman by cutting 'Refuse it!' But, inevitably, the Intemet will become the necessary ourselves off from modem life. In a certain sense this communications system for Waldorf teachers, anthroposophical would be spiritual cowardice. The real remedy for this is doctors, any of us whose professions require being 'in touch' with not to let the forces of the modem soul weaken and cut themselves off from modem life, but to make the forces of .p^g^.^ ^ esoteric dimension to the world-wide the soul strong so that they can stand up to modem life. A technology of international telecommunica- courageous approach to modem life is necessitated by essential characteristic of the next period of civilization world karma, and that is why tme spiritual science ,jg ,i^i,gd particular localities, but will be possesses the characteristic of requiring an effort of the „,g ^|,(,|g garth.' This is Rudolf Steiner in a lecture soul, a really hard effort." Individuality and the Group Soul, in which he talks about how. So when the Gesamtausgabe including the Lessons of the School in the funire, more and more people, especially those niy. 96 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 97

time and space obliterators: the telephone, answering machine and [of human beings] became increasingly poor in wisdom.'^' At the fax? The stereo, the TV? The car, the jet? Already our stereos Turning Point of Time, this tendency was potentially reversed. have outpaced the relatively simple analogue technology; digital is Maintaining this awareness and addressing this potential is our it, 'being digital' where 'bits are states of being' is the Road task. Ahead. Already in 1912, Rudolf Steiner comments on how, 'news It seems to me (and to Clifford Stoll and to Sven Birkerts) that, flashes around the globe in a few hours.' This, he says, is symp although the telephone and Internet are both parts of our commu tomatic of a 'material civilization [which] has spread over the nications technology, they cannot be compared. What is incompa earth without distinction between nation and nation, race and race. rable is the anonymity and the randomness of the Internet encoun ... This material culture ... will become increasingly material, and ter. I can 'meet' anybody; I can be anybody. I can pretend to our earth body more and more deeply entangled in it.'^® The know a lot about anthroposophy. I can get involved in any contro precise technology may have been unstated, but the overall picture versy, fan its flames, or flame its fans. Am I responsible? To is prescient, and both the benefits and the danger are clear. whom? Spiritual science, with its conscious knowledge of cause and Are we preparing, at night when we sleep, to interact next day effect, is the medicine for the embattled supersensible environment on the screen? Do our angels engage in our electronic inter of the earth. As the spiritual region closest to the earthly, the activity? Or is their absence a reason for the frigidity of cyber etheric realm promises profitable conquest for Ahriman. But the space? defence is extant. I cannot presume to answer these questions. But having con In Man As Symphony of the Creative Word, Rudolf Steiner ducted many interviews with prospective students over the tele describes how in human evolution through the planetary stages, phone, I can say that the attempt to cultivate attentiveness in real- 'the physician preceded the patient.'^' Now, too, the good powers time/real-space encounters helps me learn to cope with the elec of world evolution have provided us with a defence. tronic interference; I try to home in on the 'indefinable element,' The most terrible calamity would have come about in earth in spite of the static. Can we learn to enrich our Internet encoun evolution if, in earlier ages, provisions had not been made ters so that instead of 'netiquette' we exercise a capacity quite for these experiences of Ahrimanic spirituality that world unexpected in cyberspace, namely. Logos awareness? Is that karma is bringing to modem mankind. Life always possible? In the cyberspace environment of the Internet - an environment progresses like the swing of a pendulum.'"® hostile to process, learning and deep time; electronically antibiotic; Art, the legacy of Lucifer that we already have, is our defence. which encourages pseudo-identities, illusory meetings, illusions of Our stmggle to create it is our armour, for that inner stmggle is loneliness overcome; where information and nonsense run wild; learning and transformation. Out of that soul stmggle, wisdom and which dries up humanity's life forces and laces the world into a growth may emerge. 'To make spiritual science your own, you tightening, etherically depleted and depleting global web - in that must work at it in the sweat of your soul.'"' Not electricity, but environment, how will the Lord of Karma be, unless we harbour soul sweat, is the medium of our greatest teaming. awareness of how destructive that enviroiunent is to His? E-mail may be requisite, global encounters with screen identi Up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, 'the etheric body ties unavoidable, but if we work to strengthen the veiy forces 98 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 99

which the Web is seeking to desiccate, we will harness the har must be sustained with all the forces of which we are ness; gather the Internet into the context of our culture, rather than capable."^ finding ourselves alone in a room, netted. Ultimately, the perception that anthroposophy can illuminate for It will require 'all the forces of which we are capable' for us is that the World Wide Web is a deliberate assault on the realm anthroposophists to sustain their own forces. Eighty years ago, where we find everything that has to do with metamorphosis, Rudolf Steiner predicted with compelling accuracy that: process, growth, development, rhythm - time. Our thoughts, in so Very shortly, one will barely have recorded the date 2,000, far as they are alive, are etherically imbued. Unlike the 'thoughts' there will come from America not a direct prohibition, but of angels and gnomes, they require time to unfold. Time is as a kind of... suppression of all individual thinking into necessary for the development of our thoughts and the metamor purely materialistic thinking in which one does not need to phosis of a work of art as sunshine is for the growth of plants. work upon the soul... and the human being is handled as if When we allow time, and its modulation, rhythm, to be snatched he were a machine. ... Today we have machines which add from us, we allow the etheric world to be attacked. and subtract; everything is very convenient. In the future In earlier eras it was enough to say, 'Time heals all wounds.' you will not get a law passed which says you must not Today we can become conscious of the reality that forces of think. No. What will happen is that things will be done healing that live in time have to do with Christ's relationship to which will have the effect of excluding all individual humanity since the Mystery of Golgotha, and that these forces thinking ...'^ depend on our initiative. Where shall we get the strength to abjure convenience? To The language in which we may thus speak with the Etheric discem the cloaking of our individual thinking? Christ ... is modem anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which in its esoteric nature represents, therefore, You have to develop a certain counter-weight against this the beginning of the rebirth of the teachings of the Risen tendency in world development; and anthroposophical Christ within humanity.^^ spiritual science is this counter-weight."' We should not wonder, therefore, that this language and its We shall have to learn how we can best sustain our forces; speakers are being undermined. But this too, was foreseen by how least to squander them; which forces we must sacrifice, and Rudolf Steiner: which are sacrosanct. It will be harder for us as Anthroposophists to make our voice heard in the world than it will be for any others. The adherents of other views of the world will have less References persecution to suffer than Anthroposophists. For nothing makes men more uneasy than to describe to them the J. Birkerts, Sven, The Gutenberg Elegies. Ballantine, New York 1994, p. 15. 2. On 6 June 1996, a World Wide Web search for 'anthroposophy,' 'Waldorf tme nature of the Christ. But our conviction is based upon School' or 'Rudolf Steiner,' via three major search engines (AltaVista, the results of genuine occult science and this conviction Yahoo and WebCrawler) yielded 2,353 posted documents and about 100 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE INTERNET 101

seventy-five Web sites. Although we cannot be certain that anthroposophists 22. Steiner, Rudolf, Nature And Spirit in the Light of Spiritual Scientific are responsible in each instance, we can deduce that we are definitely out Knowledge. Stockholm, 8 June 1913. Published in Anthroposophical News there in cyberspace. Sheet, no.3, 1935. 3. Birkerts, Sven, op.cit. p. 15. 23. Ibid. 4. Stoll, Clifford, Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information High 24. Steiner, Rudolf, The Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz: its Character and way, Doubleday, New York 1995, p.4. Purpose. Lecture of 8 Febraary 1912, Vienna, 'The Tme Attitude to 5. See for example: Brook, James and Boal, Iain A., Resisting the Virtual Life: Karma.' The Culture and Politics of Information. City Lights, San Francisco 1995; 25. Galletta, Dennis F., in The Press Democrat. 19 February 1996. Roszak, Theodore, The Cult of Information: a Neo-Luddite Treatise of High- 26. Goldberger, Paul, in The New York Times. 5 October 1995. Tech Artificial Intelligence and the True Art of Thinking. University of 27. Quoted in an article by Wendy Lapides in The Pacific Sun. 6-12 March 1996. California, Berkeley 1986; Talbott, Steve, The Future Doesn't Compute. 28. Perl, Jed, 'Is It Real or Is It Megabytes?' The New York Times, 1 June 1996. O'Reilly and Associates, Cambridge, MA 1995; Tenner, Edward, Why 29. Steiner, Rudolf, The Younger Generation, p. 146. Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Conse 30. Steiner, Rudolf, Reincarnation and Karma. Their Significance for Modern quences. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1996. Woolley, Benjamin, Virtual Culture. Lecture of 21 Febmary 1912, Stuttgart. Worlds: a Journey in Hype and Hyperreality, Penguin, UK 1992. 31. Turkic, Sherry, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon 6. Steiner, Rudolf, Luziferisches und Ahrimanisches im Heutigen Kulturleben. and Schuster, New York 1995, p.30. Leipzig, 12 January 1913. 32. Steiner, Rudolf, quoted by Emst Lehrs in Spiritual Science. Electricity and 7. Birkerts, op.cit. p.229. Michael Faraday. Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1975, p. 17. 8. Steiner, Rudolf, The Great Virtues. Zurich, 31 January 1915; in The Golden 33. Steiner, Rudolf, Reincarnation and Karma. Their Significance for Modern Blade. 1969. German text in Das Geheimnis des Todes. Culture. Lecture of 5 March 1912, Berlin. 9. Steiner, Rudolf, The Balance in the World and Man: Lucifer and Ahriman. 34. Steiner, Rudolf, Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom. Lecture of 28 Lecture of 20 November 1914, Domach. December 1914, Domach, 'Technology and Art.' p.l6. 10. Steiner, Rudolf, Curative Cour.

one but all mankind's epitome.' He has no existence apart from the characters.'

Shakespeare and world destiny It is a mystery, furthermore, that makes it extraordinarily difficult to approach the individuality of Shakespeare, as one might any other great artist or figure from history, with a view to Richard Ramsbotham exploring their karma and destiny. Rudolf Steiner, who, up to the present time, has alone been able to speak publicly about the previous incarnations of a wide range of significant individuals, In attempting to approach the being of William Shakespeare we from differing spheres of life, nowhere, to my knowledge, spoke are faced with very particular difficulties for, as with no other about the karmic past of Shakespeare, although he did so with writer, with the exception perhaps of Homer, we know next to regard to one of Shakespeare's characters, Hamlet.' This is en nothing about Shakespeare's actual biography. As if this were not tirely in accord with the mystery of Shakespeare, of which we enough, we are then faced with the further difficulty that this very have been speaking. lack of information has led many to posit that Shakespeare's The time may come, however, when one nevertheless feels the works were actually written by someone else, and that William need to get closer to the individuality of William Shakespeare. It Shakespeare was merely a mask for that other person, or for a is out of such a need that the present article has arisen. The article whole group of people. (The most notable claims for the 'true' may be seen as an attempt to work along the lines Athys Floride author of Shakespeare have been made for Francis Bacon, Lord suggests, in the second part of his book Human Encounters and Bacon of Verulam, or for Christopher Marlowe, or for the Earl of Karma, the part entitled 'Encountering A Poet Through His Oxford, or for a whole circle of people, a Rosicrucian brother Work.'^ It does not come from any perception of, or speculation hood, including, for example, the Elizabethan magus and mathe about, former incarnations of William Shakespeare. It consists, matician, Dr John Dee.) rather, of the initial steps I have been able to make, in the attempt There is undoubtedly a mystery in this fact of Shakespeare's to approach William Shakespeare, as an individuality, at all. having been 'everyone,' in his work, where we feel the whole of Now, although Rudolf Steiner did not speak specifically of humanity walks before us, and 'no-one' in his own life, to the Shakespeare's karmic background, he did speak in detail about point of even seeming to have no biography. Shakespeare several times. These pieces have seldom attracted This has often been written about, for example by Owen much attention, as they are far from sensational in character, even Barfield, who describes the 'uneasy feeling' one may have, that seeming, at times, almost to be going out of their way to state the Shakespeare: obvious. And yet, if we can read them rightly, they turn out to does not mean anything. He has nothing to say. His provide a germinal starting point. characters know what they mean and can utter it in the Wherever people have questioned the identity of Shakespeare, most beautiful language. They know also what they want, they, have always agreed that there was an actor, called William have individuality. Not so the author. He is, indeed, 'not Shakespeare, who grew up and died in Stratford-upon-Avon, and who must have acted in many of the plays that bear the name of 104 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 105

Shakespeare. They say, however, that this actor, William Shake In a lecture given in 1902 about Shakespeare, Steiner speaks speare, did not write the plays, but was merely a mask for the again about this phenomenon: person, or persons, who did. This is almost always the assump It is useless to ask what Shakespeare's own standpoint may tion, furthermore, that a mere actor could not possibly have pos have been on certain questions ... Whether Shakespeare sessed what was necessary to write the plays of Shakespeare. believed in ghosts and witches, whether he was a If we were to condense into a single sentence much of what Rudolf Steiner says about Shakespeare we might put it thus: the churchgoer or freethinker, is not the essential point at all; he simply faced the problem: how should a ghost or a most important thing of all about the plays of Shakespeare is witch appear on the scene so as to produce a strong effect precisely that they were written by an actor. Let us now explore this more fully in order to see the approach upon the audience?^ it offers us, both to Shakespeare and his works. He then adds: In 1898 Rudolf Steiner wrote an essay entitled. Another Secret The fact that this effect is undiminished today, proves that of Shakespeare's Works,^ in which he sets himself the goal of Shakespeare was able to solve this problem.(!) discovering what Shakespeare's 'world view' may be said to be. Having described Goethe's 'world view,' for example, and that of This essentially dramatic quality of Shakespeare's plays, Steiner other writers, he says that Shakespeare cannot, in any comparable tells us, is to be found, in the same way, in no other playwright, sense, be described as having a world view. If he has a world and is the reason for his unceasing popularity worldwide. Further view, says Steiner, it is one we should call 'the dramatic world more, it was a quality which, by definition, could only be ach view,' by which he means that Shakespeare's approach to every ieved by someone with the most intimate and practical knowledge single situation is to seek purely for what is 'dramatic' in that of the theatre and, primarily, of acting itself. It is no accident, situation. therefore, that one can choose to overlook, but rather a necessity, This point is developed further and further in everything Steiner discoverable from the plays themselves, that Shakespeare was an

later said about Shakespeare. We must understand what he means actor: by it. It is perhaps easier if we make an analogy with another art, painting. Despite its sounding almost impossible to the non- Shakespeare's own works bear witness that he is their author. His plays reveal that they were vmtten by a man painter, one recognizes that the truest painters do not start with an who had a thorough knowledge of the theatre and the idea that then determines colour and form, but create out of the colours themselves. The colours themselves, in their development deepest understanding for theatrical effects ... In the whole and interrelationships, become the determining factors. In a similar literature of the world there are no plays which are so com way, says Steiner, Shakespeare did not create out of any ideas he pletely conceived from the standpoint of the actor. This is a clear proof that Shakespeare, the actor, has the merit of had about his characters, or in order to express any point of view, or world view, but created out of the dramatic medium itself having written these plays.® What is truly dramatic in a situation or character - what will bring Only twenty years later, in 1922, in Stratford-upon-Avon, on them to life most fully on the stage — is the determining factor in Shakespeare's birthday, 23 April, does Rudolf Steiner reveal the Shakespeare's plays. full spiritual consequences of Shakespeare's way of creating. 106 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 107

Shakespeare's characters, reiterates Steiner,- are not mere imita metamorphosis, and this we are able to observe. Rudolf Steiner tions of life, or the result of intellectual ideas, but are created remarks: specifically for the stage. The chief task Shakespeare set himself was, therefore, to create. To create, in the world of the theatre, people always try to look for the logic in Shakespeare's plays. However, they are guided not by logic but by the beings who live, who are fully alive. And because Shakespeare was so successful in this, the remarkable fact is that, if, through pictorial element." spiritual vision, one can transfer one's experience of Shake This is particularly so in that drama speaks in stage-pictures. speare's characters into the spiritual worlds, the characters con We must learn to see the pictures that each play speaks in, and tinue to live there. So fully alive are they that they continue to then see how these metamorphose from play to play. By this live through all worlds, performing actions there quite different means we may gradually start to read the Mystery of Shake from those they perform in the plays. And this is not at all the speare's life that is hidden in his plays, as Keats so beautifully case with lesser dramatists. describes. We will return, later, to the significance of Rudolf Steiner's Shakespeare is a theatre-realist, he creates for the stage ... remarks about the essentially dramatic character of Shake He knew that it is not possible to produce characters on the speare's works. For now, however, let us plunge into the pictures stage, which are imitated from life ... Shakespeare is not an of his plays and see how they develop from play to play. We imitator of life. Shakespeare is a creative spirit who works with the material that lies before him. In this way he will see how all of the plays together form a great whole - D. H. created his living characters, that enable us to look into the Lawrence called it 'the great novel of Shakespeare' - with the astral plane, into Devachan and into the whole spiritual situation and events of one play metamorphosing into those of the next, and with the characters, as it were, reincarnating from world. There, these characters do something which is different from what they do on the physical plane. Yet they play to play. Once we have immersed ourselves in this, we are alive, they do something.® will come back to see what this can tell us of Shakespeare himself. A Man's life of any worth is a continual allegory - and In Hamlet, if we approach the play as picture, or pictures, what very few eyes can see the Mystery of his life - a life, like do we find? The pictures are many, and are of such a nature that the scriptures, figurative - Shakespeare led a life of we can immediately understand how their life and being could Allegory; his works are the comments on it. (John Keats)' never be restricted to the play alone. For many of us they form a Despite all that we have said, we will, of course, if we wish to part of our own inner world - the death of Ophelia, for example, come closer to William Shakespeare, have to look at his plays to in the 'glassy stream,' or the ghost of Hamlet's father appearing see what they can reveal about him. The fact that Shakespeare did on the battlements, in the cold winter's night, in Denmark. Of all not set out to express any ^message,' or point of view, but worked of them, however, there is one which we might justly think of as primarily as a 'creative spirit,' does not mean that we cannot learn the central, archetypal image of Hamlet. Hamlet himself, in the anything from his plays, only that it will be very important how graveyard, while Ophelia's grave is being dug, holding a skull in we approach them. front of him - Yorick, the jester's skull - and meditating on it. It Because Shakespeare's characters and plays live, they undergo is a moment out of time, in a sense, yet it is not a static image. It 108 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 109

is part of a moving, living imagination. Shortly afterwards Hamlet In King Lear, written five years after Hamlet, the sphere where Meaps into the grave.' the action takes place has shifted, as A.C. Harwood points out. This helps us to sense the development that takes place during The same battle as in Hamlet has, in a sense, to be fought out, no Hamlet. In this central image of the play, Hamlet comes to terms longer merely in the consciousness, however, but now in the with death - meets it face to face. It is through this that Hamlet is deepest levels of man's being, in the tumultuous, unconscious transformed. We remember Hamlet's fear of death, earlier in the realm of the will. The victory, if it can be won, will be far more play: profound in its consequences but, for the same reason, will cost infinitely greater suffering to achieve. To die, to sleep; Lear's story is, put simply, that of his being stripped, layer after To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come layer, of everything that had previously given his life meaning, of everything that had previously given him his identity. It can When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. therefore be nothing other than a joumey towards madness. Step Must give us pause. by agonizing step, the layers are peeled away - kingdom, daugh How totally different he is, after the graveyard scene! With ters, retinue, walls, clothes, senses - until nothing is left. what freedom from fear, and freedom to act, Hamlet enters the At the beginning of the play, Cordelia had answered 'nothing' duel in which he is, in fact, to die. Horatio suggests that if Hamlet when ordered by Lear to speak of the quantity of her love for feels uneasy they should delay the action. Hamlet will not hear of him. Lear, in fury, had banished her - banishing, at the same time, it, knowing that death will come when it will: his own heart, for Cordelia, as Ted Hughes points out, is also 'Coeur de Lear.' Now, at the end of the play, Lear, himself, in his If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will nakedness, has also been brought to nothing: be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to Pray do not mock me: leave betimes? Let be. I am a very foolish fond old man

Hamlet, we may say, is obliged to come to terms with a new And, to deal plainly, relationship between man and the world, unknown in medieval I fear I am not in my perfect mind. times, where man has, as it were, fallen out of the order of things: It is, at this moment, that the miracle can begin. Cordelia's The time is out of joint; O cursed spite 'nothing' was, of course, only a seeming nothing; once it is That ever I was bom to set it right! reached, it proves to be merely a gateway to an infinitely richer He succeeds in this, as we saw in his all-important facing of sphere of being, beyond. And so precisely now, when Lear has death, in the form of the skull. The fact of its being a skull is lost himself, he finds himself, anew, and can be reunited with significant, furthermore, in that Hamlet's battle is fought out in Cordelia: consciousness, in the sphere of the head, primarily. The place Do not laugh at me; where the play begins is telling: *on the high platform under the For, as l am a man, I think this lady Irosty stars.'" 110 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 111

To be my child Cordelia. Do you see this. Look on her, look, her lips. Cordelia: 'And so I am, I am.' Look there, look there!

And then after all this, Cordelia is taken away from him, and and he dies. murdered. Lear must walk in holding her dead body in his arms. In The Winter's Tale we are again faced with a stormy. Lear The pictures in King Lear, as in Hamlet, are many, and are like male, in Leontes. Again, he perpetrates the most terrible lasting, but this is the truly shattering one. In some periods people crimes on the female; far worse ones, in fact, even than King Lear have found it too terrible to behold, and have changed the ending did. Believing, without any basis whatsoever, that his wife, Her- so that Cordelia does not die. But, if we would travel the path of mione, has been unfaithful to him, he throws her in prison, and Lear, we must, with him, somehow suffer it through. ('Suffering tries her, with the clear intention of condemning her to death:

through,' or 'patience' - stemming from 'pati,' meaning 'to thou suffer' — is perhaps the crucial virtue in all of Shakespeare, and Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage certainly in King Lear. '^) Look for no less than death. Lear's pain is too great for words, and so he enters howling: Meanwhile, in prison, the queen has given birth to a daughter Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! You are men of stones: - their second child - and, certain that he is not the father, Leon Had 1 your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so tes orders Antigonus to have it burned alive: That heaven's vaults should crack. She's gone forever. If thou refuse For a brief moment, Lear believes that she lives, and knows The bastard brains with these my proper hands that if this be true it would make all his former agonies worth Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire; while: Leontes is only just persuaded out of this, and commands that if it be so. Antigonus take it instead to some foreign land, and abandon it to It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows its fate: That ever I have felt. bear it But it is not so. Cordelia is 'dead as earth,' as Lear is forced to To some remote and desert place quite out recognize: Of our dominions; and ... there ... leave it Thou'lt come no more. Without more mercy, to its own protection. Never, never, never, never, never! And favour of the climate. After this, Lear himself can hold on to life no longer but, in his No figure in Shakespeare does greater wrong than Leontes. And last moments, looking at Cordelia's mouth, where he had hoped to yet, unlike King Lear, the journey of The Winter's Tale is one that see signs of breathing, he suddenly sees something that no-one leads, eventually, to a 'happy ending.' In King Lear, the whole else sees: play is necessary for Lear to undergo the trials that enable him to be reunited with Cordelia. In a purely earthly sense, it is too late. 112 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 113

No sooner is Lear reunited with her than Cordelia is murdered. Leontes, whom Leontes had sought to have killed, believing him Lear walks in holding her dead body and; shortly thereafter, dies guilty of adultery with his wife. Polixenes has a young son, himself. In The Winter's Tale, Leontes, like Lear, is to be reunited Florizel, the heir to the throne of Bohemia. Perdita, meanwhile, with the daughter he banished but, although Leontes' actions were has grown into a young woman of almost goddess-like beauty: 'no far crueller than Lear's, the reunion, in The Winter's Tale, is shepherdess, but Flora / Peering in April's front.' Florizel has miraculous and lasting, and the very opposite of tragic. chanced upon the shepherd's cottage, where Perdita lives, the two Leontes' wife, Hermione, is tried for adultery - on sentence of of them have fallen boundlessly in love, and wish to be married death. A message from the oracle at Delphi arrives, proclaiming immediately. that: 'Hermione is chaste' and Leontes 'a jealous tyrant; his Polixenes discovers this and, furious that his son should woo a innocent babe truly begotten.' Leontes demands that the trial shepherd's daughter, threatens Perdita with death and Florizel with continue, declaring that the oracle lies. At that moment news disinheritance if they even speak of their love again. The two comes that the son of Leontes and Hermione — their first child — young lovers, who will not be parted, are advised by the wise has died. Hermione falls unconscious and is taken out, and, Camillo to set sail for Sicily, and find Leontes, who, eager to suddenly, the veils fall from Leontes' eyes. He sees what terrible atone for the wrongs he had done in the past, will be sure to help wrongs he has done, but too late, for Paulina returns to announce them, and rejoice in their wedding celebrations. to him the greatest of all his wrongs — the queen, Hermione, is And so Act Five sees Perdita, her identity unknown, even to dead. Leontes vows unending penitence, and exits, saying: 'Come herself, retumed to Sicily and, standing in front of Leontes, and lead me / Unto these sorrows.' beseeching his help, with Florizel. That which Leontes has lost But we are only in the middle of the play, not at the end of it. has been found again. He does not know it yet, although his Events will now weave in a most remarkable way, so that Shake words reveal it: 'Welcome hither, / As is the spring to the earth.' spearean tragedy will be overturned, will end in healing and Shortly afterwards, however, events so unravel that everything redemption, and not in woe. The message from the oracle at is made known. Polixenes has also come to Sicily, as have the Delphi had added that Leontes would never have any heir: 'if that two shepherds who brought Perdita up, and who are threatened which is lost be not found!' This refers, on one level, of course, to with death by Polixenes. Everyone meets together — Leontes, his baby daughter, Perdita, who has been left to die, in the open, Polixenes, Perdita, Florizel, Paulina and the shepherds. The shep in a foreign land. On another level, it refers to all that, on an inner herds, to save their lives, tell of how they found Perdita, and show level, man has lost, that he has to re-find.'^ the letters and other things that had been left with her. Perdita, then, with all that she represents, must somehow be re- It is a reunion far more total than that between Lear and Cor found by Leontes, and the rest of the play consists of the journey delia, and is one that beggars all description. It is 'a sight, which that must be trodden to make this possible. was to be seen, cannot be spoken of.' It is therefore not acted out At the end of Act Three, we see Antigonus abandoning Perdita on the stage, but is narrated to the audience, by people who in Bohemia, as the dead queen, Hermione, had instructed him to wimessed it. do, in a dream. The baby is found there by a shepherd, and Act There is another reason, though, why it is not acted out. In Four then begins sixteen years later. King Lear the reunion between Lear and Cordelia was, in a sense, Bohemia is ruled over by Polixenes, the former fnend of the high point of the play. It could not be maintained, and was 114 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 115

followed by the searing image of Lear carrying Cordelia's dead requir'd / You do awake your faith.' Then, after telling those to body. In The Winter's Tale, the reunion of Leontes and Perdita is leave 'that think it is unlawful business / I am about,' she an maintained and therefore leads up to the highest resolution that nounces that she can, indeed, make the statue walk, and take must form the chief image at the end of the play. We learn, Leontes by the hand. Leontes beseeches her to do so, at which together with the whole assembly, that Paulina has, in her keep Paulina addresses the statue: ing, a statue of the late Queen, Hermione, and they all go to 'a 'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach; chapel in Paulina's house' to see it. Much is said of how this Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come; statue represents the highest achievement possible to art. I'll fill your grave up: stir; nay, come away; Paulina unveils it, and Leontes, speechless at first, remarks: Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him I am asham'd: does not the stone rebuke me Dear life redeems you. For being more stone than it? 'Hennione comes down,' Leontes is presented to her, and they Shortly afterwards, almost out of his senses, but happy to be so, embrace. Only one thing more is now necessary in order that he says, gazing on the statue: Hermione may not only be brought back to life, but may also speak. Paulina asks Perdita to kneel before her mother, then says methinks. to Hermione: There is an air come from her: what fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, Turn, good lady; For I will kiss her. Our Perdita is found. We remember Lear, with Cordelia's body, howling: Hermione speaks, first to the gods, then to Perdita, and the play ends on the highest possible level of rejoicing, redemption and O! you are men of stones resolution. then holding a mirror to Cordelia's face, and saying: The pictures in The Tempest, Shakespeare's last play, work differently, more visibly, than in the other plays. It, nonetheless, If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, picks up clearly from where The Winter's Tale left off, and thus Why, then she lives. represents the furthest stage of development and metamorphosis of Should this be so, he said, it Shakespeare's plays. In King Lear the whole play was needed for Lear and Cordelia does redeem all sorrows to be reunited and this could not last, on earth. In The Winter's that ever I have felt. Tale, at the end of the play, not only have Leontes and Perdita It was not so, in King Lear, but now, in The Winter's Tale, that been successfully reunited but, in the coming back to life of redemption is happening. The stone is melting human hearts and Hermione, we have seen what might be called magical powers then the stone, itself, is being seen to breathe. Death is being restored to man. In The Tempest, this is where we begin. Prospero turned to life. (the Leontes/Lear character) and Miranda (the Perdita/Cordelia Paulina steps forward and says to everyone present: 'It is character) are together, from the start, and Prospero is a magus on 116 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 117

a grand scale. What, one might ask, remains to be achieved? In The work of William Shakespeare is unarguably the greatest the answer to this lies the riddle of the difference of The Tempest single contribution to the rebirth of drama in Christian times. Is it from the other plays. To explore the details of this, however, goes possible to say, however, that his work has been 'fertilized by the beyond the scope of this article. central archetypal drama... which took place on Golgotha'? Let us Let us now turn our attention again to what Rudolf Steiner said look once again at the picture-development through Shakespeare's about the essentially 'dramatic' nature of Shakespeare's work and plays, and we will see that it certainly is possible for us to say see, in conjunction with the picture-journey we have made through this, and in the most remarkable of ways. the plays, what this can reveal about the being of William Shake The key is given to us in King Lear. We saw the central image speare. there to be Lear carrying Cordelia's dead body in his arms. With What does it mean to construct plays not out of any philo no effort at all this image transposes itself into that of the Pieta - sophy, or world view but, first and foremost, out of what is ex of Mary carrying Christ's body, or of Joseph of Arimathea, taking perienced as dramatic? It means, of course, that, as in all creative Christ's body from the Cross. endeavour, it is not possible to work out of any previously held The central image of Hamlet we saw as that of Hamlet, in the conceptions. But does it not also mean that something must live graveyard, holding a skull and meditating on it, before he 'leaps in the dramatic — that behind, or within, drama there must be a into the grave.' A little more poetic licence, admittedly, and we being who will speak through the work, if, like Shakespeare's, it see Hamlet as Shakespeare's 'Place of the Skull.' It is Good is created purely out of the dramatic itself? Rudolf Steiner Friday, the stage of the Death on the Cross, Crucifixion, which suggests that this is so, by stating: Something transcending ordi precedes the image depicted in King Lear. nary human life lives in drama. Shakespeare entered deeply into The central image of The Winter's Tale is, without question, the this."' miraculous and heart-rending one of the statue, Hermione, de Who is this Being, then, who stands behind true drama? Emil scending and returning to life. The significance of this may evade Bock addresses this question in his book The Three Years.^^ He us until we realize that what we are in the presence of is the stone begins by saying that 'properly understood, the Gospels contain moving. The Winter's Tale represents, in terms of the unfolding of archetypal drama,' and then makes the surprising statement that the 'archetypal drama... which took place on Golgotha,' Resurrec 'the drama of the Gospels and the drama of ancient Greece are tion, or Easter Sunday. intimately related.' He explains this by saying that what the In The Tempest the images do not happen, on stage, in the ancient Greek drama did was to make public 'both consciously same way as in the other plays. Nonetheless people have rightly and unconsciously, part of the ancient Mysteries.' This connects it seen as central to the whole play Prospero's speech, which closes to the Mysteiy of Golgotha, which 'represented the entire and the grand spiritual celebrations of the true union of Ferdinand and final public revelation of the principle of the Mysteries.' Since Miranda: that time, says Bock, 'the archetypal drama has been in the very be cheerful sir: midst of humanity.' The significance of this for drama itself and Our revels now are ended. These our actors. its rebirth is that, from that time on, it: 'can and must be fertilized As I foretold you, were all spirits and by the central archetypal drama of humanity which took place on Are melted into air, into thin air: Golgotha.' 118 WORKING WITH DESTINY SHAKESPEARE AND WORLD DESTINY 119 And like the baseless fabric of this vision, underlie, in the most intimate and individual of ways, the develop The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces. ment of his plays. The circumstances of Shakespeare's life also The solemn temples, the great globe itself. ally him deeply to this time: he was bom and died on the same Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve. day, 23 April, St George's Day, which falls between Easter and And like this insubstantial pageant faded. Ascension. Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff William Shakespeare, in the details of his life and his work, As dreams are made on, and our little life shows himself to be united, in the profoundest way imaginable, Is rounded with a sleep. with the tme Source of drama.

Is the content and mood of this and, indeed, of much of The Tempest, anything other than that of Ascension? We can even go so far, I think, as to say that the Epilogue to The Tempest, where Prospero tells us that everything now depends on how others receive what he has done, points towards the References Mystery of Whitsun. Death on Golgotha, the taking down from the Cross, the En 1. Barfield, Owen, 'The Form of Hamlet,' in Romanticism Comes of Age, Wes- tombment, Resurrection, Ascension — step by step, in his own leyan University Press 1986. 2. Steiner, Rudolf, Lectures on The Gospel of St Mark, Lecture 1. Anthropo- way, Shakespeare treads the path of Christian Initiation.'® This is sophic Press, New York 1986. what our researches reveal. 3. Floride, Athys, Human Encounters and Karma, Anthroposophic Press 1990. There is a further point, connected to this. Sergei Prokoffief, in 4. Printed in The Anthroposophical Quarterly, Christmas, 1928. The Cycle of the Seasons and the Seven Liberal Arts, describes 5. From; 'Notes of a Lecture by Rudolf Steiner at the Workman's School in Berlin, 1902.' Anthroposophical News Sheet, Vol.13, 9-10, Jan. 1935. how the different arts each relate to a specific Festival. Thus 6. Ibid. Whitsun relates to the seventh art, the social art, and Ascension to 7. Shakespeare and the New Ideals, included in Waldorf Education and Anthro- euiythmy. Easter relates to 'the art of the word.' It is: posophy, 1, Anthroposophic Press 1995. 8. 'Rudolf Steiner's Report on his Lecture Tour in Holland and England in the art of the word that can approach most closely to the M9i2Brbposophic News Sheet, 24 February 1935. 9. Letter to George and Georgiana Keats, Februaiy 14-May 3, 1819. mysteries of Golgotha. The works of this art form stand 10. Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy, 1, Anthroposophic Press 1995, p.216. like great milestones in the history of humanity and, 11. Harwood, A.C., Shakespeare's Prophetic Mind, Rudolf Steiner Press, through them, human beings can acquire an understanding London 1977, p.41. of the full significance of the Mystery of Golgotha." 12. Lear, in Act II, as one by one his former 'needs' are denied him, prays: 'for true need, - / You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!' In Act I hope that this article has shown that this last sentence is wholly III, refusing to answer the Fool's jibes, he says: 'No, I will be the pattern of applicable to the works of William Shakespeare. all patience; / I will say nothing.' There are many other remarkable This may well lead us to ask: What is the specific relationship references to patience throughout the plays. Pericles, for example, says to Marina: 'thou dost look / Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and of the being of William Shakespeare to the Easter Mystery, the smiling / Extremity out of act.' Pericles, Act V, Scene 1. Mystery of Golgotha? It is this Mystery which we have seen to 13. See the wonderful linking of The Winter's Tale with the myth of Persephone 120 WORKING WITH DESTINY 121

and Demeter, in Shakespeare's Flowering of the Spirit, by Margaret Bennell, Lanthom Press 1971. 14. Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy, 1, Anthroposophic Press 1995, p.229. 15. Bock, Emil, The Three Years, Floris Books 1980, p. 181. 16. See Bock, Emil, op.cit. pp. 172-74; also Steiner, Rudolf, The Theosophy of the Karma and the mystery dramas Rosicrucian, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1966. 17. Prokoffief, Sergei O., The Cycle of the Seasons and the Seven Liberal Arts. Temple Lodge Press, 1995, pp.22-23. John Gee

Rudolf Steiner began his very last lecture series - the Speech and Drama course (1924) - by emphasising that anthroposophical endeavour does not arise out of the 'urge to plan reforms' or 'put out some great "idea" into the world' but rather arises out of the attempts to meet the 'demands of karma.' Karma, he stresses, is the guiding principle in all anthroposophical endeavour. The challenge it would seem then is to awaken to the opportunities that our karma provides us with in order to bring to realization on the earth impulses for spiritual renewal. We need, in other words, to begin to awaken to the reality of reincarnation and karma. It is not surprising that Rudolf Steiner was to emphasise this point in the introduction to a lecture series devoted to the renewal of dramatic art. For could one not say that the idea of reincarna tion and karma is the very archetype of all dramatic art? Does it not seek in essence to present on the stage the drama of the reincarnating individual? Shakespeare, for instance, hinted at this when Jacques in As you like it refers to the world as a stage where we have our 'exits' and 'entrances' and where we 'play our many parts.' We meet the archetype in the image of the 'actor' and the 'stage.' Wherever drama approaches 'mysteiy' drama, the arche type comes to the fore. But this archetype was not fully revealed until Steiner himself wrote his four Mystery Dramas (1910-13). For the very first time in the history of drama the reincarnating individual is presented on the stage in his full reality. Reincarna tion and karma is the very lifeblood of these dramas. 122 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE MYSTERY DRAMAS 123

We are thus presented with scenes that take us back in time the whole group. But every little step taken in this direction by beyond the characters' present earthly life. We are given glimpses one or the other helps in the gradual realization of their karmic of dramatic moments in their past lives on earth — the con task - which, in the case of this particular group of people, is to sequences of which are affecting their lives at present. These lay the foundations for a modem mystery centre. images from the distant past help them to understand the problems Through conscious acts of sacrifice certain individuals can take and difficulties that they are facing now in their present relation it upon themselves to share in the karma of another person or, as ships with one another. We are presented with a new perspective in the case of Benedictus, even the karma of the whole group. But of human evolution, as we see the characters evolving from life to each is called upon in his own way to awaken to his particular life, gradually awakening to their eternal humanity through their karmic task within the group. One is reminded of the apocalyptic ever-deepening relationships to one another. words of the old Man with the Lamp in Goethe's fairy-tale The Here, then, in the Mystery Dramas of Rudolf Steiner we have Beautiful Lily and the Green Snake (1795) - a work that was the one way in which we can begin to awaken to the reality of re major source of inspiration for the Mystery Dramas: incarnation and karma — we can take into ourselves the example of the characters as they struggle to awaken to this reality in their The old Man looked up to the stars, and then began to speak: 'We are assembled at the propitious hour; let each lives. Words of the initiate character Benedictus in the first drama perform his task, let each do his duty; and a universal The Portal of Initiation sound as the leitmotif that echoes on happiness will swallow up our individual sorrows, as a universal grief consumes individual joys.' At these words through all four dramas: arises a wondrous hubbub: for all the persons in the party Here in this circle a knot forms out of the threads that spoke aloud, each for himself, declaring what they had to karma spins in world becoming. (Scene 3) do. In this karmic *knot of destiny' lies the 'seed' of the karmic It was very much in the spirit of these last words that a group task of this particular group of people. They have the possibility of us, who eventually founded the English Mysteiy Drama Group, of creating something new if they can gradually take hold of their began our work with the Mystery Dramas nine years ago. We had karmic ties from the past and transform the threads of destiny that long felt the need to begin a dramatic work together. Various have bound them together in a 'knot.' Benedictus has the task of attempts had been made but nothing really came of these. It was constantly drawing their attention to this possibility. He helps only when a certain question was put to some of us that we really those who are ripe for it to awaken to their karmic tasks with found the impetus to begin the work - the question whether respect to one another. But it is they themselves, the individual performances of the Mystery Dramas would help draw the wider characters, who must ultimately unravel the karmic knot. Only anthroposophical movement together in an open celebration of the free deeds of love performed in the name of Christ can fully very heart of anthroposophy. We wondered whether the Mystery redeem past karma, it is revealed. Few of the characters have the Dramas could be a source of inspiration for community building. inner strength and courage to do this fully. They are continually The question acted as a kind of catalyst drawing us together. It pitted against the forces of evil in their soul life, that would draw worked as the 'seed' around which we could crystallize our work. them away from doing this — often with tragic consequences for We experienced it as the 'star' that was to guide us through many 124 WORKING WITH DESTINY KARMA AND THE MYSTERY DRAMAS 125

a storm on our voyage into uncharted waters. It seemed like *a we worked on a particular drama, how the serial dynamic of the star of destiny.' karmic relations between the characters in the drama seemed to Presumably the 'time was at hand' for the dramas to be more find its echo in the serial dynamics of the group itself. Our own widely performed in English. The work grew rapidly over the fol mystery drama seemed in many ways to be echoed in the Mystery lowing years with performances of the dramas to ever-increasing Dramas themselves. We could thus find a constant reference point and divergent audiences in many parts of Europe and North for what we were going through in trying to recreate the dramas, America. Performances of the dramas seemed to meet a need in in the inner gesture and dynamics of the dramas themselves. Thus, the hearts of many people. We often heard members of the audi working on the dramas one developed a heightened awareness of ence say that experiencing the dramas gave them a feeling of the dynamic of karmic relations working between us. It was as if hope. one was meeting an archetype in the dramas. Working on Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas one cannot really We were constantly faced with new challenges, as we worked avoid being drawn into the question of karma and how it works in our way through all four dramas. I think we experienced the life. Indeed, it is a great privilege to have the opportunity to work greatest challenges in working on the last one. The Soul's Awak intensively on dramas that in both their form and content are ening. In this drama the characters themselves are continually focused on the question of karma itself. Looking back over the challenged to tiy to overcome the things that separate them from past nine years, it seems to me that one could say that both the one another, to try to find one another anew, to build a 'bridge' achievements and failures of the work are the result of our at towards each other in order that they can work fhiitfully together tempts to face the question of karma. The work seems to have for the benefit of mankind. Particularly deep levels of karma are arisen out of the constant struggle on the part of many people to at work in their meetings with one another. We witness, in the awaken to a karmic task together - the struggle to somehow take Temple scene, the events that have triggered off the karmic hold of karma and try to raise it towards free deed. This feels like dynamic between them - a failed initiation ritual in Ancient an undercurrent that has gone through the work. Sometimes in the Egyptian times. Here in this event lies the 'seed' of their karmic actual act of performance one could feel that we had perhaps task - to create a new form of temple - a 'human' temple of the broken through to something new. spirit. They can hardly be said to have achieved this by the end of In all that we have gone through together I think it would be the day. In many ways they appear to have failed. The powers of true to say that it is the Mystery Dramas themselves that have darkness do all that they can to lead them astray. We feel the been our constant guide. We have, as it were, had to live the tragedy of our own times. But through their experiences and Mystery Dramas both in our own personal lives and in our lives ordeals they find new powers of hope that will lead them on into together as a group. We have had to face the same kind of trials the future. and temptations as the characters in the drama as we have tried to It was always an enormous challenge to work on this Temple work together. We have had, from time to time, to take on the scene and in many ways uncomfortable. It was the scene that role of Benedictus for one another, in our attempt to awaken to called up the greatest degree of conflict in the rehearsal period. 'the knot of destiny' that seemed to have bound us together to do One could feel that one had to overcome oneself in order to work the work. It has been a challenge not to lose sight of the 'star' on as if one was on the edge of something in the dynamic of the that had originally brought us together. We would ofteo feel, as group's own karmic relations. It was the scene that in many ways WORKING WITH DESTINY resisted one and required the greatest degree of presence of mind in performance. It was the scene in which one felt perhaps most naked as a group. One could not but ask oneself the question — what events in our karmic past have triggered off the dynamics of Notes on the contributors karmic relations between usl Why are we standing here now performing Mystery Dramas together?! Awakening to the reality of reincarnation and karma is perhaps Dr Virginia Sease is a member of the Executive Council of the one of the greatest challenges in our time — something that con Anthroposophical Society and leader of the Section for the Arts of cerns the whole of humanity. Through such an awakening we will Euiythmy, Speech and Music. be able to find the moral forces that will be needed if we are to lay the foundations for human community in the future. Working Nick Thomas is Chair of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain, with Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas can be a help towards this and is actively engaged in research in projective geometiy applied to awakening. Through working with these dramas 1 believe one can physics. begin to develop an organ for recognizing the working of karma Nothart Rohlfs has worked as a gardener, translator and author, spent in the dynamic of our relationships. One becomes more intensely five years in Jama and is now active in independent adult education aware of this dimension of our human existence. And although the and research. dramas present unique karmic situations and relationships, one wonders whether there is, all the same, an archetype going Hans Peter van Manen is a historian, teacher, author and lecturer. through all four dramas - in the dynamic and gesture of these relationships — that applies to all 'temple building* between human Hartwig Schiller has been a Waldorf teacher and is now a member of beings who are consciously striving to work together out of the the faculty of the Waldorf Teacher Training Institute in Stuttgart. impulses of a modem mysteiy wisdom. And, as we awaken to this Dorit Winter is director of the Rudolf Steiner College Extension Course in our own lives together, maybe we will be writing new dramas Teacher Training Programme in San Francisco. for the theatre of the next century! Richard Ramsbotham taught English literature at Warsaw University and is now a student at the Speech School, Peredur Centre for the Arts, where he also teaches literature.

John Gee is a graduate of the Speech School, Peredur, and has taken part in all four Portal Productions of the Mysteiy Plays. RUDOLF STEIKER LIBRARY 65 Fern Hill Rd. D A T E D U E Ghent, N. Y. 12075

-7 1997

JM»87 am

Rudolf Stelner Library 65 Fern Hill Road Ghent, NY 12075 (518)672-7690 [email protected] T H E G O L D E N B L A D E 1 9 9 7

WORKING WITH DESTINY

The study of karma - those patterns and influences which we bring with us at birth - can provide meaning to life events which would otherwise appear random and senseless. Our physical make up, our predisposition to certain illnesses, the patterns of our relationships and the events that shape our biographies: all of these can reveal underlying karmic laws when approached through systematic study and exercises. The contributors to this collection have all worked on karmic research in a wide range of areas, including regression therapy, professional relationships, artistic endeavours, and patterns in history and in modern communications.

The Karmic Core of Anthroposophy Virginia Sease

Karma Research

N i c k T h o m a s

Intimations in Images Nolharl M. Rohlfs

T r a u m a v e r s u s K a r m a H a n s P e t e r v a n M n n e n

Angels amongst Us Hartwig Schiller

Karma and the Internet Dorit Winter

Shakespeare and World Destiny Richard Ramsbotham

Karma and the Mystery Dramas John Gee

Cover picture: Gahmuret and Belacane by David Newbatt for Wynstones Press Cover design: Ann Ross Peterson

ISBN 0-86315-241-4 Rons Books

9 7 D863 1 52442 : £6.99